Interviewed

I will burn in hell for this, I know, and I couldn't forgive myself for four weeks, four long weeks of soul-searching terror and remorse and self-pity and the memories of the sweetest sex I've ever had. So, I regret nothing, and get on with myself, and forget about hell, and realize he will be, along with the guilt, in my soul and in my heart forever, despite the deception.

I was so bored with my life then, and my job, helping foreign investors to settle in China, find real estate and workers and CEOs and CFOs and other Os, resolve contract conflicts, getting to grips with an outdated tax system and an intractable bureaucracy. Business was bad that year, and the tedium of the office unbearable. So, the last month of that interminable summer, lonely and horny, I took my e-reader to the Sheraton across the street whenever I could slip out, and nestled on a brown and red couch in the corner of the lounge, reading Tim Winton and wondering what it would be like to lose a finger, and if anyone really said 'B.O.' for 'body odor.'

Always alone there, unobserved, nursing my tea and asking for more almonds, looking out when the pages got too long, onto the street, the yellow taxis, the thousands of people rushing by on their way to everywhere and back; always in my books, and escaping from the real life into someone else's.

Hurray, hurray, the hero triumphant, the Laksa noodles arrive, and the waitress apologizing that they took so long, but they don't get many orders at 11 am and the cook's Malay.

What has that got to do with it? I am thinking, but she explains, in the racist Chinese nonchalance,

---They are very lazy people.

---Malays?

---Yes. Haven't you noticed?

---No.

---Well I am telling, you they are, like all the South Asians.

---Ah, good to know.

She smiled as if she had just explained the workings of Chinese government to me: the unfathomable secret, suddenly illucidated by Wei Cong, the curvy waitress at the Sheraton. So I slurp my noodles, trying not to get upset, and wonder if I should touch the e-reader with my oily fingers. There's a market niche for you: e-readers for sloppy eaters. Nanocoated, guaranteed no-stain. On the white one I always see my finger prints after touching a newspaper. That may be intentional, to ween people off print for good.

I sat in the slowly disintegrating autumn, interspersed by typhoons and floods, pining for love and my long conversations with friends. I reserved rooms in Hong Kong for New Year's, to meat an old friend I still carried a torch for, but who only hired escorts, and just wouldn't agree to love me, the bastard. And I suffered from neuralgia.

I bought things I didn't need, and discovered that after all I was now a member of the middle class. Hello, my name is Carl, I am a shopaholic, and a porn addict. /Congratulations. With the purchase of the last useless item, you have now graduated to Consumerism Level III. To continue your course, please insert your credit card in the anus before you. /

I woke from my dreams---dreams, no! Nightmares! when a beer arrived on a tray, and Wei Cong smiled resourcefully,

---I took the liberty of getting you another one.

She knows I always have two, and then I fall asleep again over /Philosophy of Language -- An Introduction,/even though I really want to read it this time. The characters swim on the passive screen, and my brain says, 'go home, go back to work, go to the gym, but don't sit here and bore yourself senseless.'

Only then, my eyes open by chance, and signal 'target in sight!'

They appeared at 11:37, when my table was cleared by a white guy with crooked teeth and a face that said, /I am the trainee, I hate my job, please don't hit me/. First the woman, in her fifties, Chinese, extraordinarily ugly hairdo which must have cost a fortune at some fancy hairdresser's once interviewed in Vogue because he could spell 'marketing.' She sat there waiting for five minutes, going over some notes on paper, her perfume wafting over towards my table in swaths of sweet, herbaceous pain.

She'll be waiting for her publisher, I thought, she probably writes trashy romance novels or investment guides, that sort of woman she looked, /Mary Chung's Guide to Chongqing's Real Estate Market/.

He'll be fat, with gold rings on his fingers, and a missing tooth. He'll only speak Cantonese, burp between bites, and tell her that the last edition didn't sell, and that she was too critical of party policy. He would explain to her in the face of contra-evidence that /China is now a market economy/, because Wen Jiabao /fucking/said so, so please put that in your book, and she'll not even protest and... Then he walked in and my brain gave out. /Target acquired./I lowered my e-reader on the sofa and my eyes lit up and my heart beat faster and my prick grew hard and the hair on my hand bristled and my nose itched. I shivered, and I froze, and I gawked like an imbecile.

He was in his early twenties, Eurasian genes, clean shaven face with half-Asian eyes, short black hair. First I thought it could be that Hong Kong actor from the shower-gel commercial, but this guy was much more handsome. She stood up when she saw him and stretched out her hand; he took it, and in fluent but heavily accented /putonghua/ apologized for being late, to which she, of course, in the face of so much beauty, could only reply,

---Oh, no, it was I who was early, please don't apologize.

He sat down, facing me, so that I could hear what he said, but not her part of the conversion.

It was immediately clear that they had never met before, that he was the object of her questions, and when he said//'SMEs and investment,' 'from Brown University,' 'four years,' 'always wanted to work for a bank,' 'no experience, no' 'for three months, and then I did...,' 'Chinese, English, a bit of German and Spanish,' 'no, no Cantonese,' and all that and the in between with the cutest accent, not arrogant ABC, but endearing, with a wrong tone here and there, I was sure that she was interviewing him for a job. When she reached into her bag for some more documents, I saw it had indeed a bank logo in the bottom left corner.

Someone appeared at my table and asked me something, but I did not hear a word he said. He took away a chair, and grinned insanely afterwards.

For the next hour, I picked up the fragments of their conversation whilst reading my Winton, but I was miles away from Angelus and the surf.

He was just stunning, absolutely stunning. I knew with perfect conviction that I had to have him, at least try to. This time I would. Never mind that he hadn't once looked in my direction, and couldn't, his young age and all, be interested in a fat old git like me. Never mind that I was fully aware how deluded I was. How silly. I recalled my own twenties: when had I ever looked at a forty year-old man? Forty, when you are twenty-three: that's practically geriatric. /Go fetch a wheel-chair for Carl. Are you sure you can manage? He'll give me a heart attack if he takes his shirt off. /

The waitress said something and waved a napkin, and I said something and she gave me a stare. I must have been rude, but I can't remember that either. Somehow another beer materialized, and a bill with it, and another chair disappeared as the room filled with diners.

The interview went on and on, and their noodles came, she fried, he beef in soup, into which he put vinegar and chili, just the way I like it, and then, quite unexpectedly, he apologized and got up, and she stared out the window. I was up in no time, following him towards the restrooms. He held the door open for me, I smiled. He took the last urinal, I made my move and stood next to him.

---Job interview, eh? Tough!

---Oh! Yes!

---Sorry, I was at the table next to yours. You didn't see me. I couldn't help overhear.

---Oh, yes.

---Tough lady, eh? You are sweating!

---Oh, yes.

And then he packed away his willie and backed up to the washstand. Excellent conversation so far. /Well done./I wish he'd say all that in bed with me: oh yes, oh yes, oh yes. My God he was handsome! The shirt perfectly ironed, expensive tie, the bum round and hard I was close to grabbing it and raping him there on the table, next to the paper towels, they would come in handy. And then, just as I couldn't think of my next move, I had an inspiration. I washed my hands next to him, and when he had dried his, I took a name card from my shirt pocket and said,

---Hey, if it doesn't work out, give me a call. We are always looking for talent.

He took it, smiled, said thank you, and left. I stepped into the cubicle, and took the edge off.

He didn't call the next day, I mean, what did you expect. I had said, 'if it doesn't go well,' so probably he was waiting for the bank to get back to him. For a week and a half, I stayed at the office and made sure every call was answered properly. I told my secretary to put through /all /calls, and not try to get rid of people whom she didn't recognize, or suspected of only hunting for jobs.

On Friday next I flew to Taiwan to sort out our office there. Jerry and his wife took me to Keelung to watch the ghost festival. We saw a bunch of drunk white guys, shirtless and unappealing, playing bad jazz on a rickety float, and wondered aloud if it was possible to be more embarrassing than that, as a Caucasian, in an Asian country. Fifty groupies wearing miniskirts and t-shirts which ended just below their tiny breasts, followed them, passing beer cans and vodka shots between them.

On Sunday I lay in my hotel bed, jerked off seven times between morning and night, ordered beef noodles and put extra vinegar, watched CNBC, all that thinking, without interruption, of my Eurasian, and wondering whether I would see him again.

I thought I had, at the airport, and again on the plane back. But I was clearly hallucinating. Then in the streets, he was everywhere. I was in a fever for two weeks, until Thursday at 2:49pm, Missy put through an unknown caller, who said he had been given my name card at the Sheraton. I sat up straight, and broke out in sweat.

---Hello?

I introduced myself and asked who it was. He said his name and I pretended to have forgotten all about the name card in the toilet. /Cheeky, cheeky. /Then I placed a compliment, the type the makes straight guys immensely uncomfortable when it comes from the mouth of another man.

---Oh, yes, I remember, the handsome Eurasian guy! Sure I remember you. You had your interview that day. How'd it go?

I knew exactly how it had gone. Would he be calling otherwise?

There was pause, long enough for him to digest being called 'handsome,' and draw his own conclusions.

---Not so well. They didn't take me.

---Oh shame.

And now the second barrage.

---Still, it must be easy for a good-looking guy like you to get a job here. And your English...

I let the sentence hang and waited.

---Well, actually.

He said that in haste, and then chewed on the 'good-looking.' In round three of my bombardment I would call him a 'gorgeous stud,' I decided, but round three never came.

---I haven't found anything. I've interviewed with eight firms but...

I said nothing. Let him sweat a bit. Make him beg.

---You mentioned something about a job. Is that offer still...

Oh, he was good with the hanging sentences. We all learn that here in Asia, from the Japanese maybe. If you want to be tactful and sublime, never finish the sentence, just...

---Well, it's not a job with our firm. But we do headhunt for companies and I have a couple of cases that may suit you. One consumer products firm, and an IT case.

---Yes?

/Oh no sonny, you aren't getting anything over the phone./

---Well, shall we meet for lunch tomorrow, and discuss it? I need to go over a few points with you, and you have to answer the usual questions.

---Questions?

He was apprehensive.

---The usual CV stuff. Shall we say 11:30 at the Sheraton?

---The same place?

---Yes.

Then he said stupidly,

---How will I recognize you? Do you...oh, I know what you look like, sorry, stupid of me.

/Yes, but I forgive you if you sleep with me. /

---Sure no problem. Here is my cell number.

He gave me his, and that's a date.

I hung up and jumped up, ran twice around my desk until Missy saw me and shook her head, and then I walked to window and looked out over the city, and said, half aloud,

---Fuck yeah!

The next day was light-years away. I went home, fed the cat, and called my mother in Toronto, just because I felt I had to tell someone that I had had a good day.

---Are you seeing someone at last?

---Yes mum, cute Eurasian guy. Really nice.

---What's his name?

She always did that, as if names could tell her anything, or to get me talking about the things she understood, instead of shoulders, pecs, abs, thighs, and all the other parts I'd never talk to my mother about anyway. And then she asked,

---What does he do?

And I said,

---He works in a bank.

And that satisfied my mother, and I promised her I'd visit soon, and then we talked about the weather and an outbreak of some bark disease in the forest, and about Afghanistan and the new nurse who had moved in downstairs, and I told her I loved her and kiss kiss kiss, and when I hung up, I was as nervous and horny as before, and still couldn't think straight.

So I called Jeff in L.A., the man to whom I confess everything, and got a wrong number and went for the vacuum and found I had no bags left and then went in the bathroom and undressed and saw my fat old body in the mirror, and the patchy hair and the jowls and the sagging tits and I sat down on the toilet, farted and said to the monster in the mirror, 'fat chance,' and then I cried my heart out.

Of course I didn't have a job for him. We use headhunters, and the heads they hunt are forty to fifty with experience, and pay more in taxes than a twenty-three year old kid earns in a year.

I was there at eleven, just to make sure I would get the table I wanted. Wei Cong grinned, then saw I didn't have my e-reader. She sensed something was wrong, and I knew she knew, so I explained,

---Business meeting today. No time for reading.

That settled it, and she brought me the usual.

The curious thing: he was early too. Maybe being late for his last interview had set him off, or maybe it was just coincidence. I saw him standing in the door, unsure where to turn, and I got hard again the moment I laid eyes on him.

That's the curious thing with fellows, some you can jerk off and fuck, and still you lose your boner. Other you need to touch and smell. And then there are guys you just look at and vrooom, you are ready to roll.

He saw me, and strode across the room, /the man/, secure, confident, like they teach you in /get-a-job/ /school/. His handshake was firm, and his hands bigger than I expected. The back of the hand was hairless, but I could see a few coarse black hairs peak out from under the cuffs. Just three or four, just the way I like it. I wondered instantly how his chest would be like, while he said some commonplaces about the weather, and the quality of food, and the... actually, I have no idea what he said. I wanted to tell him to get rid of the tie, it was awful, and open a button, so I could glimpse his chest. I realized I myself was tied and buttoned up, so I started with that: lean back, after each has taken his seat, both in impeccable suits, now feigning to be hot, reaching for the knot, taking off the tie in a long, deliberate gesture, interrupted by the fucking waitress bringing my beer and asking him, so I say, 'have a beer' because you have to encourage young guys, especially Asians, who are always after orange juice and water and fucking green tea. I watch him stare at her, her bum, when she leaves, and my heart sinks...a little. /What did you expect? /Strategy number forty-two: embarrass the shit of them.

---Hot number, isn't she?

His face turns red immediately. All Asians hate to be called out. I caught him staring. He stammers something, I go back to my tie, finish un-knotting it, place it over the chair beside me, open two buttons, say,

---Let's get comfortable,

realize how out of place the gesture is, we are here for a fucking interview, so he doesn't do anything, doesn't follow my lead, because I am the older man, and he is being interviewed, and shy, and I /did /call him handsome on the phone, so maybe he's sitting on needles already.

But then the beer comes, quicker than expected, and we touch glasses, and he takes the biggest, courage-inducing sip I have ever seen a young Asian man take, half the beer in one go, and then, right after, not even waiting for the buzz, he takes off his tie, and undoes three buttons, and I look at the smooth chest, not a hair in sight, and he sees me looking, /he knows I am looking/, and there goes another button, and I am, /fuck yeah. He can play the game. /

Then we talk shop. I tell him what I do, the companies I work with, the type of jobs we have to offer, conveniently forgetting to mention that not in a million years would we come across a job for a guy as inexperienced as he, so between beers and I Laksa and he a club sandwich, he gets his hopes up and relaxes. I am easy-going, I make people comfortable. But not enough. He flirts with me, just enough to show he knows what's going on, but coy too, so if pressed, he can run and claim his innocence back. Young men are devils these days, and I wonder if I ever was that confident and shy at the same time.

After an hour and a half, I don't know where this will lead, and pay the bill, and promise to call him if anything comes up. I've taken down his particulars, but I can't think straight. I want to fuck him right there, bend him over the table, but what can you do, at the Sheraton, at lunch? Play the toilet scene again? I say I have to piss, and leave, and of course, stupid me, I left my jacket hanging and my tie there, so he's not gonna get up and follow me. He'll be sitting there, watching my belongings, maybe peeking at the notes I made in my diary. Oh fuck, he'll read what I wrote! I zip up and hurry back to the table. He hasn't moved, but the young waitress is standing next to him, flirting, pushing out her tits, the bitch. When she sees me, she scampers. We walk together to the front door, I promise I'll find something for him, and get in a taxi, drenched in sweat, and somehow happy the ordeal is over.

But of course, then I don't sleep for a week.

I really didn't sleep for a week. I called in sick twice, went to a sauna, missed a conference call, and everyone at the office told me I needed a rest and a vacation. I penciled in Phuket for January, just to shut them up, then hid behind my desk and got my cock out.

How embarrassing is it for a man of my age to have the hots for young guy? Not more embarrassing than for an older man to want a younger woman, I think, rationally, but somehow what I do seems so much more dirty. It isn't, I tell myself, I am not seducing him with money---not yet. I am not inexperienced in these matters either. I've called escorts and hustlers, and paid a guy in Brussels to fuck me. For some reason he showed up in cowboy boots.

On Monday, a bus runs over a dog in front of my office building. Doesn't even stop to look, just drives on. A whimpering mess of bones and blood is left there for a minute before it expires. Nobody even stops to look, except for a woman pushing a cart, who shouts something in Cantonese, then, reaching in to remove a meat bun, hurls it after the bus. I take down the license plate number and call Missy, ask her to call the police.

---What for?

---He ran over a dog.

---If I call the police about that, they'll only laugh at me.

I realize she is right, and walk home, feeling sick all the way.

Late at night I call my mother and tell her all about it. She returns the favor and talks about a cat, run over two streets away from her house. Then she asks if I'll come home for Christmas. I say maybe, and she says,

---And bring your Asian!

That's when I realize she hasn't understood me the first time.

---Mum, I said Eurasian. He is Eurasian. And we...

---That's what I said there, bring your Asian if you want.

And the second time.

---No mum, he is Eurasian. Mixed race. Half Caucasian, half Asian.

---Oh, I see, like Keanu Reeves.

I wonder at the leap, but then I realize she's taught him in high school. And she probably knows his ancestry.

---He was such a sweet boy, but difficult.

All of mother's male pupils were sweet, but difficult.

---Is he as handsome as Keanu?

I try to remember desperately what Keanu Reeves looks like. I am not a movie goer, but I remember him coming to our house in Toronto: I see a thin kid with a shy, absent-minded stare, and my mother fidgeting with the orange juice.

---I think he is as handsome as Keanu, I say, sounding appropriately non-committal.

My mother still thinks I made advances to Keanu, and that's why he stopped coming. That was her reaction when I told her I was gay, more than ten years later,

---So that's why he stopped coming.

I never made the connection, never understood why. I don't ever remember talking to the actor, not to mention seducing him. He probably was the son my mother always wanted. Instead she got a freckled queer kid with psoriasis on his legs.

---Eurasians, mum, are the most handsome people on earth. They combine the tall, impressive stature and rugged features of Caucasian warriors with the smoothness and delicacy of...

I realize in mid-sentence that the connection has broken off. I take a shower, and don't sleep for another night.

After Wednesday, I can't wait any longer. I call /My Asian./ He picks up the phone immediately. I hear a streetcar in the background, and the noises of a market: chickens in cages and a man hacking with a cleaver on a cutting board.

---Where are you? I ask him.

---In Hong Kong. Mongkok.

---What are you doing in Hong Kong?

---I will be back tonight.

I can feel what he wants to ask, so I preempt him.

---I've got something for you.

/How awful that sounds. Like a porn flick. /

---I will be back tonight. Is tomorrow OK?

---Tonight is fine too, I say, surprising myself. When will you be here?

---Eight, if I make the train I got tickets for.

---I see you at the Sheraton at eight.

---OK.

---Don't dress up. Just us.

---OK.

I hear him swallow. We've moved from business lunch to dinner date. He knows it, and I know it, and I don't know how it's come to this. It sort of slipped out, and I wish for a moment I could take it back.

But then I get busy. I rush home, work out in the basement gym for an hour, then shower, sauna, shave, crop my hair---always short anyway in this heat---and then, against my own advice, I put on a suit again, my best and most expensive, the one that makes me look a stone lighter and ten years younger. The one they photographed me in for /Caijing /magazine. The /Young Foreign Professionals in China /feature. I smiled insanely on the cover.

I call my car company and have the limousine round at seven. Traffic is hell and I know I'll be late, but we arrive in time, five minutes to spare.

Only he's already there, and the moment I see him, I know I got him. He's wearing a pinstripe with a pink shirt.

He sits at the same table as last time, studying the menu. I slip out again, walk up to the front desk, get a room. I can always share it with a bottle of bourbon, I say to myself. And it's only 130 dollars, off-season. Top floor, with a view of the river.

We greet each other, and I think of /Men at Play/ videos. My head spins; I order whiskey without asking him.

---Are we going to eat? I ask him, hoping he hasn't got anything else planned for tonight.

He looks stunning, clean shaven---not that there is much to shave in that youthful face---and his eyes sparkle. His hair is so perfectly cut, not a single one out of place. The light pink shirt is open to the third button. He places a hand on the adjacent chair, pulling the jacket apart and the shirt with it, and I gasp.

---I am starving, yes. I am actually starving.

---Didn't eat on the train?

I realize the moment I say it that he wouldn't. Nobody in their right mind would eat the low quality lunch boxes they sell. A look passes between us, of understanding. We are both privileged in his world, even though he has still to find a job to finance his expensive tastes.

We order food and I ask him about his parents. He is open, free with information, not nervous like the last time. His father works for Cathay Pacific. His mother is at home. He grew up in America, and, of all places, I say, Denmark.

---My father worked for SAS before that.

I picture him, black-haired and smooth, in a sea of blond Vikings. My cock is so hard, when I order food, I have to keep the menu strategically placed on the glass table so the bulge doesn't show.

---You don't want to work for an airline then? Be a captain. Big boy's dream?

He shakes his head.

---I am actually afraid of flying, he admits sheepishly.

---So am I. But then again... I am allowed to be. I work in China. And used to work in Russia.

We joke about airline safety and economy class seats, and the introduction of upright seating. I realize he is as much a snob as I am. He'll do anything to get ahead. I can see it in his eyes, and hear it in his jokes.

---So what's this job you got for me, he says when the fruit platter arrives with the bill, having reigned in his impatience for far too long.

Now I have to tell a fib. I've got nothing for him. Absolutely nothing. So, out of the blue, I tell him about soft drinks, and consumer products, and a possible junior managerial position. He is interested, and I promise to try to get him an interview with the client. I say, with a deep and meaningful look, which I don't know what it is supposed to mean myself,

---I'll recommend you especially.

---Where are they from?

---Europe, I fib, again, and just a little ashamed. I tell him I will do my best to find such a job for him, but for now, I'll do anything to touch this boy---man. Tonight more than ever, he seems controlled, and mature, and grown up.

---Is everything in your CV true?

He looks puzzled.

---We get a lot... I mean, a lot of people who lie in their CVs. If you wrote something that isn't true, you better tell me. If the client...

---Everything is true, he says, understanding my concern.

Then we pay, and walk to the door.

My mind races.

---Would you care for a nightcap? I say, my fingers clutching the keys in my trouser pocket. I can feel my heart beat, and my lips are quivering. What if he says no?

---Sure. They have a nice bar on the top floor.

He really is unafraid. Unfazed. In control. Unlike I.

---We could...

I start, almost falter, but it has to be done. It's ten o'clock. My cock is burning a hole in my trousers. I start again.

---Let's have it in my room. I'm on a high floor.

I don't know why I add that last sentence. Somehow it seems necessary.

I wait for the cold shower. The 'no thank you,' with a disgusted look thrown after, or the 'I don't know,' and a lot more work ahead of me, or the 'are you fucking nuts?' but most likely, 'no, let's go to the bar.'

For a second I think that's what he said, but he hasn't said anything. He has taken four, five steps in the direction of the lifts. I follow him. He looks at his feet, at the carport, at the floor indicator while we wait in silence.

He doesn't ask anything, not why I have a room here, not whether I /planned/ all this, and when exactly I got the room and...all the things I would ask if I were in his shoes.

When we arrive at my floor, he lets me go first, and I am anxious to know whether he is following me down the aisle; but I don't dare to turn around until I reach my door. I slip in the card, pull it out again, and he reaches over to press down the handle. As if to indicate, /I am here, I am with you, I won't run away./ He's got more courage at twenty-three than I have at forty.

The room is of course empty, and had I lied to him about living in the hotel, he would have known by now. What is he expecting? What, if anything does he expect to happen, now? I go for the bar, and pour two whiskeys, hand him one, smile. I see my own hand tremble. I finish mine in one, put down the glass, stand behind him as he looks out the window. He stands right in front of it, an ocean of lights stretching out before us.

I reach around his waist.

He doesn't push me away.

I am thinking of something to say, either, 'if you do this for me, I'll make sure you'll get the job,' but I am too deep in this deception, can't go on with the plan. My conscious is bawling at me, let him go. So, something that will give him a way out. I open my mouth almost, to say 'you don't have to do this,' /you can run away, now, this is your last chance, and I would prefer if you ran, quickly, and take away that feeling of guilt with you./

He turns around.

He looks into my eyes.

His hand floats up to touch my chin; he smiles gently.

Then he falls to his knees.

He puts the whiskey glass on the floor and reaches for my fly.

---Is that what I have to do to get the job? he says, but quiet and with enough of a smile on his face to reassure me he's here not entirely against his will.

This is the point in the story where, to appease the censors and the faint of heart, I should skip the next few hours and have him wake up in my arms in the morning, where we make passionate love once more. But that would be cheating. I want to relive the pain. The deceit. What I have done to this innocent youth to satisfy my own devilish desires.

There in that room, before that window, he knelt down, and opened my pants. He reached inside and brought out my already hard cock, and with a mixture of innate disgust and youthful curiosity, began to suck it. He wasn't very good at it. I asked him twice if he wanted to stop, but he shook his head, my cock buried in his throat.

After a while, suddenly shy like a schoolboy, I pulled him up, and kissed him.

---Are you gay? I asked him. Maybe I wanted to hear a 'yes,' so I wouldn't feel too guilty for using him, promising him employment in exchange for a night of passion. He only said,

---What's that got to do with it? and kissed me harder. I thought about what he could have meant for a while, but when my hands reached his shirt, undid the buttons, one by one, kissing the flesh beneath, and then pulling the shirt apart, and laying my eyes on that beautiful smooth chest, sense left me, and sensibility took over. I showered him in kisses, rubbed his shoulders, pulled off his trousers and sucked him, his naked body pressed against the panorama window. He was hard then, and when I turned him around and stuck my tongue between his cheeks, he got even harder. It took ten minutes for the first sigh, and it came when I went in with my tongue as deep as I could. I used a finger, and another sigh emerged. I saw his face pressed sideways against the window, the warm breath fogging up the glass. Then he reached back and shoved my head into his arse.

I fucked him. Against that window, on the floor, on the chair and the footstool, and finally, on the bed. For an hour and half, our bodies whirled about the room in that deceitful passion. With every thrust I thought, 'I am sorry, I am only using you,' and every time he received me, he took the guilt away and replaced it with lust. He was inexperienced in gay sex, I could tell, and probably a virgin, but he still had all the right moves. He seduced and beckoned and let himself be taken like a woman---that, I realized was probably what he was imitating: the girls he had slept with, the women that had seduced him. That's why he so willingly offered himself up...that's why it hadn't occurred to him that I may want /him/ to fuck /me./ He assumed the role of seductress, the whore, and a good job would be his reward.

All that came in clarity later, and not at all until I shot my load into the condom, and he his over his stomach. Not until he lay in my arms and we cuddled. Not until he played with my chest hair and said,

---I honestly didn't think I could do it. But I wanted to try.

I shifted on the bed so I could look at him better. His faced was still flushed. He played with the cum stains on his flat belly.

---You /wanted/ to. Are you sure?

---Sure I am sure. What? You think you can make me do something I don't want? Even if I didn't want it... I wanted it, he said, immediately realizing how inappropriately he had expressed it. What I mean is, even if I never wanted to try sex with a man, I am still here of my free will. I am not an idiot.

I couldn't think of anything to say in return. I wanted to assure him, somehow, that I hadn't done it---yes, I had done it out of selfishness and lust, but that I wasn't evil. I wasn't...

---It doesn't make me gay you know. If that's what you are afraid of.

This young man was surer of his sexuality at his age than I was of mine.

---And I promised myself I'd try everything once.

---Have you never...before....

He shook his head.

---It wasn't half bad. I might try again...

He grinned, then wriggled out of my embrace and righted himself, kneeling on the bed, catching the cum flowing down in the open palm. There was, for a moment, a strained look on his face as he did so, but then he said with a mirthful laugh,

---It's not as hot as with a girl, but...getting fucked isn't half as bad as I thought it would be.

He climbed off the bed, stood there, his cock still half hard, dark pink tip glistening moist; then bent over and kissed me on the cheek.

---I enjoyed it.

He disappeared into the bathroom and moments later I heard the shower come on.

I felt tears coming, and hugged the round pillow, clamped it between my knees, sobbed and writhed for a moment in utter agony.

So, I am in hell, and even if he could one day forgive me, or has already, or never took the offense I imagined him to have taken, even if indeed he belongs to a generation which takes such things much more lightly than mine, even if he boasts about it to his mates or looks back on it as just one more cunning deed in his promise to try everything, and not be afraid, even then, I can never forgive myself.

I will never forgive myself. It turned out all right, he was a good kid, and open-minded. The new generation of men who grow up now and are not stuck in a cliche world of fixed mindsets that know only gay or straight, butch and effeminate, black and white, good or bad, yes or no. They might be the first generation ever who really understand how the world is meant to be understood, how life is meant to be lived.

But the guilt stayed with me for months. Every time I see a young guy I like, I see him falling to his knees, reaching for my zip, and say,

---Is that what I have to do to get the job?

-------------------------------------- For more of Marten Weber's writing, please visit http://www.martenweber.com. Please report errors in the text. Comments, suggestions, etc. to mailto:webmarten@gmail.com All my stories are available free to nifty readers. Just ask. Join me on facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001463092932