His name was Romain, Romain Lavoisier, and if you know how to pronounce that name in French, in its native language, with its original sounds---the way it is meant to be spoken when beholding its bearer, lean, suave, smart, with short black hair and an immaculate bespoke suite---then it will melt on your tongue like a chocolate truffle, like a delicate tarte, and by the time you reach the last syllable, your mouth will be full of spongy sweetness and insuperable longing, and your embarrassed, burning lips will stay slightly apart as you exhale a sigh so deep it will be utterly surprising even to your own self. Normally, you have great self-control, I am sure, but if you sat like me at a conference on Public Procurement, in a sterile lecture hall on a third-rate university campus, and then, after welcoming remarks by the director of this and the vice-minister of that, and two boring presentations on life-cycle cost and best practices, you watched Monsieur Lavoisier, the keynote speaker on the financial aspects of public procurement, not walk from his seat to the dais, no, dance, float, glide, jump, run almost, elated and youthful with a feathery lightness, then, like me that day, you would have willingly forsworn all mastery over your own senses, and, like me, you would have stared, obtrusively, uncontrollably and longed, and wondered, and desired, and you would have felt your heart on fire. He was barely thirty, I thought at first, but learned from the handout that he had a middle name, 'L.', that he was already thirty-two, worked for a major French bank, and had obtained a degree in finance; that he had published numerous papers on the subject of 'risk distribution in public procurement,' and that... but what did it matter? Who cares? What did, for the moment, indeed, import his interesting subject of project finance, which I had come here to learn about, along with three hundred other eager government employees? Now, with that face, that smile, that man before me, what did I care about risk distribution, about mezzanine finance, about concessions and power production agreements, about BOT, BTO and---save me!---DFBO, what mattered SPVs and EPCs when these acronyms spouted so eloquently from a mouth so sensual, from lips which seemed to take such pleasure in forming these poignant vowels and effervescent consonants? I heard every word he spoke, and I heard nothing he said. I was lost the moment I saw him, his well-shaped, even face, his hair---not curled, but more than wavy---in its deep and lustrous black, cut to perfection, I assumed, in a fashionable French salon---it must be so, he was now a vice president there, a V.P., yes, V.P., a very pretty man, yes indeed, the moment I beheld the dark and heavy brow, the sloped forehead, the chiseled cheeks, and then, as if in trance, even before he had started talking, his mouth, smiling now at the audience as he inserted the USB stick into the notebook, realizing too late that his Powerpoint lay already on the gadget's desktop, the file already open, the slide already projected on the wall, and that from it, in mellow green tones, already gleamed that name I now again took into my mouth, my eager, wet and welcoming mouth, Romain, it spoke, Romain Lavoisier, la-voah-zieh, say that, with your mouth left open, waiting for him to enter it, or seal it with a kiss. Before he said the first word, he let his gaze wander over the audience, from corner to corner, from side to side, through each row, smiling professionally. Own the crowd, Romain, own the crowd. All eyes were on him. Two rows behind me, giggling women from the research institute. I watched two take a picture with their cell phone. Barely said a word, and Romain was already all over cyberspace. No wonder, with that smile. Then, in a gesture of deference, gratitude maybe, and styled politeness, his eyes lingered at the front, his head nodded to the vice-minister, the budget director, the secretary and the director-general of statistics, budgeting and accounting, was it? And then, as his eyes ascended two more rows of attentive listeners, they rested on me, and his lips pursed for an instant and he smiled, at me? Really? I blinked to clear my contact lenses, to see if he had noticed me indeed, looked me in the eye, recognized me, maybe, from where? But he had moved on, and now he bowed, and thanked us all for being here, and thought it---how true it sounded from his elegant mouth!---such a great and ill-deserved honor...of presenting at this venerable venue, at this important conference, before such illustrious dignitaries. Had he looked a me, really? How could he have noticed me? I am just another Asian face in the crowd, a little younger maybe than the average, a little taller maybe, perhaps slightly better dressed and groomed, owing to my eight years working in New York, and Paris, for his competitors. Did he know that? Had he maybe recognized me? From some other conference---no, impossible. He was a hot shot in the banking industry, I was an underling of no consequence and with no exposure. But all through his subsequent talk, he seemed to look at me, yes, me! more often than at the others, while speaking without fault or stammer in that melodious, intoxicating voice. Oh how he talked! What sweetness in his voice! Each syllable a delight as he entered upon the enthralling subject of---uh---financial aspects of---uh---public procurement contracts and the use of innovative instruments for---uh---debt leverage and---uh---instruments, innovative instruments, did he say instruments? Yes, violas, deep violins, a Vivaldi spring and summer issued forth from his dark-red lips, a musical dance, not violins, no, a cello, clamped between his legs, strong, hairy legs, firmly... Oh! He could have talked about anything and everything, and still it would have sounded like a heavenly choir. He had, like so many European professionals these days, perfect command of English, and was either spending a lot of his time in the presence of Americans or had even worked there, in New York, I imagined, prompted by the sudden turn of phrase. Yet again, like so many European young men, his speech oscillated between a perfect, near-native accent in one sentence, and a heavy foreign one in the next. He would say things like 'so if you've got the finance guy, and the operating guy, and the construction guy on board,' and sound utterly American, and top-of-the-game, master-of-his-subject; yet two phrases later, add somewhat shyly, and more measured, 'but of course, zis is risk zat can be leveraged,' stressing it 'leverAAged', having fallen back into an endearing French school-accent which betrayed his Gallic origins. How I loved the see-saw of his voice, completely oblivious to the actual word spoken: in his English intonation, he sounded mature and world-savvy, yet at time slightly childish and with that forced youthfulness and peppiness so peculiar to Americans; but always manly, and in-charge, as he elaborated on the options of debt versus equity, and gearing and leveraging. Every time he said 'gearing,' I pictured him naked on all fours, and myself clutching his balls and cock, and pulling them back between his thighs, and... In his more mellow, Gallic paragraphs, he sounded sweet, and young, and innocent, and girlish even, until I realized that his body language too oscillated in the same curious manner. The American Romain held firmly onto the rim of the dais, looked stately and sternly at the PowerPoint display, pointed with authority and explained with erudition how different incentives were created through financial constructs, and how it was such a bad idea, as it was done in Asia, too often, to make the construction company the main equity holder of the PPP project, because... The French persona, the Monsieur Lavoisier, who always emerged at the end of a very technical section or a very professional expose, and rendered in its melodious patterns a critical commentary, a funny note, a joke even, and always, always punctuated by smiles, and curious waves of the hand, rotating at the wrist, now showing the palm, now the back of the hand with its copse of coarse black hair in the center, waving again towards the wall, and capering back through pockets of clouds towards the keyboard, dancing, as did his whole body in those moments, like an elvish creature, effeminate, sweet, child-like, utterly and convincingly adorable and, I decided... gay. And a bottom to boot. Bingo! His eyes rested more on the dignitaries as the presentation progressed through its twentieth minute, but now, more often, they wandered upwards and rested on me, I fancied, more often than on other people in my row. It may have been that he found me attractive, I thought, but more likely, it was because I so attentively stared at him, and smiled at him, and generally must have had a look of complete rapture and infatuation on my face. He must have thought I was actually listening to what he said! Whereas in truth, I only heard fragments: those fragments which were spoken when he smiled, when he showed his colors, his emotions, his allure, when between his wrong accents and misplaced aspirations, I saw him willing, weak and wondrously handsome. All around me, somber, boring men in gray played with their mobile phones, their tablet PCs, or fiddled with recently collected name cards, or their spectacles, or scribbled on the handouts, printed so thoughtfully on recycled paper, and available, as the cover proclaimed, online by going to the following website. He coughed. I looked up. Romain Lavoisier had stumbled over the words 'Singapore Sports Center,' and had turned away from the microphone to cough. Was he ill? A cold? Immediately I had the instinct to run down, help him, pat him on the back, embrace him, from behind, ask him, this: are you alright? Are you OK? Do you need help? Shall I call a doctor? Will you live? You vulnerable soul! Will you be fine if I embrace you thus? Live on? Live with me? Will you love me, will you...? He coughed again, and the face reddened perceptibly. His 'pardon,' echoed through the hall, and a young girl, pretty, Asian, with sparkling eyes, brought him a glass of water, which he took, not even noticing her beauty, not beaming back at her. Yes. Definitely gay. Absolutely. No straight male would treat an Oriental beauty with such disdain, even in the grip of pharyngeal convulsions. Check hands! No ring on finger either! That's three indications. Now, get out the phone and look him up on Facebook. I couldn't find him. He drank, swallowed, apologized again, and continued his talk. I looked up, just as he began to speak. Our eyes met for the briefest of moments, but I knew he had been staring at me for longer. Our glances met, for a microsecond, like two fencing swords: one clear tone in my head, as the metal strikes. I had missed it, almost. Fidgeting with my old-fashioned phone had distracted me from admiring him live, so I gave it up. There were too many people, en fin, with the exact same name, and not a single picture matched the swarthy, elegant beauty before me, which entered now upon the intricacies of the Singapore situation, and the government guarantees given in case of financial turmoils, and the bridge loans, and the ten-year versus twenty-four-year structure, and the ten-year miniperm, which sounds like a hair-do, but is something ineffably complicated only financial minds understand. All of a sudden, while I was still fantasizing, and had quite an erection---so much I dreaded getting up at lunchtime---the talk was over, quite precipitously, and my soft and sweet French presenter capered away from the podium, and over to a desk on the stage, where three other notables now assembled. The question and answer session began. It took a while to arrange the microphones, to switch off the projector, for the chairman to sum up what we had heard so far, and what we could expect from these admired experts, for whose eloquent presentations he thanked them again profusely. What had we heard? That Romain was handsome, gorgeous, soft and sweet and hopefully still available? That his name had the most erotic qualities, the sweetest nasality, the deepest, kindest sighs incorporated in its sonorous syllables? Someone asked a question and someone on the stage answered: a woman.
From Sweden. My eyes were on Romain. He was playing with a pen, twirling it with his long fingers. His eyes caught mine, and he smiled again, briefly, but looked away. Oh, he was a professional! He was, I was sure, already in love with me as I was with him. Had he not purposely looked at me more than at the other attendees? Had he not thrown me secret glances throughout his presentation? Had he not winked once, and spoken, for the last ten minutes, only to me? Was I not already in his heart, as he was in mine? How could he keep his composure? I dropped my phone, and scrambled to retrieve it from the depths of the auditorium floor. As I crawled up again, out of the space between the seats, his eyes came back, and again rested on me, and he noticed me, yes, but he did not dare act upon it! Or was he just looking because of the noise I had made? No, his eyes flickered! He wanted me alright! He felt it too! Would someone please ask him a question, so I could listen once more to that delightful voice? Someone, please... now! ---I have a question for Monsieur Lavoisier, said the man next to me, and the dark angel on the podium smiled, beamed virtually, at my neighbor, but also---yes, clearly, at me. The question was asked, and Romain answered it. He was now all French, all sweet and soft, and with effeminate gestures, which increased, I thought, when I looked at him firmly and his eyes caught mine, again! There! He misspoke, and once more, he stumbled over a word, and another, mispronounced it entirely, mangled---and was it even the right word?---just as I had caught his gaze, had held it firmly and then smiled broadly. His answer came to an end, and promptly someone else, much higher up in the auditorium asked. The question was again directed at Monsieur Lavoisier. Again he answered. The women above me giggled. The sound of another cell phone taking a picture. He was cutest when he spoke, and everybody felt that. And again, between looking at the person asking the question, and addressing the entire audience, his eyes came floating back to mine. I looked away---just a little to his left, at the chairman. For as long as I avoided him, Romain's eyes were on me, clearly and unmistakably. I was not wrong. When I looked at him, he smiled---there! Ha! He said 'fondling,' instead of 'funding!' Priceless! But the answer was too short. Two more questions came, for other people on the podium, but I saw now only him, and, I thought, he only me. ---Are there any further questions? The chairman waited; looked up and down the aisles, through he benches, over the heads. ---Any other questions, we still have two minutes before the break! No hands were raised. Romain Lavoisier stared at me. I simply had to. But with my innate shyness. What could I do. And speak in English? Aloud? Oh Lord. ---If there are no other questions... I raised my hand. Out of nowhere, courage came and a question shot into my head, from the beginning of Monsieur Lavoisier's lecture, when I had still been conscious of what he actually said. ---Yes, please, said the chairman, pointing at me with his pen. He looked at me so sternly I almost lost my cool. I pressed the button on the microphone built into the table before me. ---I think, I said, swallowed, then realized how thick my voice sounded, and cleared my throat, all the while my eyes not leaving Romain's sexy face. I think Monsieur Lavoisier owes us an explanation why Korea, as he said at the beginning of his presentation, has been moving away from traditional public-private partnership models in recent years. I switched off the microphone, swallowed hard again. There was still a lump in my throat. He looked straight at me, and laughed. ---Yes, I am so sorry, he said, and with all the double entendre he could manage in this public arena, under so many pairs of eyes, he said submissively, and softly, ---Please, Sir, will you forgive my omission? My cock pounded so hard it hurt. He was submitting to me in front of four-hundred people. He ventured to explain in short, clear sentences, the particulars of the Korean situation, and then ended by saying, with the thickest French accent, no doubt intentionally laid on for my benefit only, ---I hope I have satisfied you, Monsieur? I nodded. He smiled. I smiled. I beamed. He beamed. I curled my lips. He... what exactly was he doing with his lips there. He wasn't blowing me a kiss, was he? I am hallucinating. We looked at each other so long and deep, I think the chairman was confounded and took a minute to recover from the intimate exchange we had laid on. We had existed, Romain and I, throughout the question and the answer, in a world of our own, and only now did he return, he to his podium, I melting into my chair, red-faced, and all warm and gooey inside. ---That's all the time we have for questions, said the stern moderator, and something else, and then everybody got up on their feet and rushed to the exit for lunch.
Except for me. I sat nailed to my seat. I couldn't possibly get up without showing the enormous tent in my trousers. I observed Monsieur Lavoisier, speaking to the chairman, then to another presenter, then being introduced to the vice-minister, his back to me. Of course, a young underling had nothing to do there, couldn't interrupt, couldn't possible join the pre-lunch banter. But I had to do something! I ruffled my hair in desperation, trying to figure out a way to meet Monsieur Lavoisier, continue that passion which had so abruptly overcome us, to catch his eye again, to see his mouth, his laugh, his... He was surrounded half by gray-haired functionaries, half by fawning women. A girl was pressing her name card in his hand now, but he showed no interest. She took his hand, did not let go, until he withdrew it abruptly, and as he did, his eyes floated over the heads of two men into the audience, looked feverishly for an instant, then found me sitting there, starry-eyed, still watching him. I could not look away. And he smiled again. But once more he was taken from me. The vice-minister pulled him away from the podium, down the stairs, to his seat, introduced him to Mr. Chen and Mr. Fan, and Mr. Whats-his-name, and Mrs. This-and-that, and Mr. Couldn't-care-less and Mr. Help-me-and-Get-me-out-of-here! and he smiled and laughed, and answered their questions and said, 'no, this is my first time here,' and 'yes, very interesting,' and then 'I am sorry I cannot be here for the afternoon session, but I have some very important meeting,' this Gallic hunk, this loving, intoxicating smile, this beauty of man, this little girl, who flirted with me, conscious or not, who had so daringly announced his sexual preference, who had succumbed to me, surrendered so willingly, this gorgeous god who should not be here amongst these gray-haired boring masses, but in my bedroom, on his back, his legs up the air... He was slipping through my fingers. ---Lunch for speakers and VIP guests will be on the fourth floor, if you follow me, said the same girl with the luminous eyes Romain had so wantonly ignored when she had brought him water. She too, I observed was looking at him longingly. But he followed her bravely, taking his notes and sliding his USB stick into his pocket, being guided by the vice-minster, taken out of the auditorium, into the aisle towards the exit under the spectator seats, away from me---there was his laughter, one last time, resonating in the big hall, and then he was gone.
I sat alone, surrounded on all sides by a handful of older men who had already finished their meal or brought their lunch boxes into the conference hall, but I sat alone, and devastated. I couldn't go up to the VIP room. I couldn't walk up to him and slip him my name card. I could do nothing but wait. But wait for what? Had he not said that he would not be here in the afternoon? Would he not leave after lunch, immediately, slip away unconquered, unkissed? Would he even take lunch, or would he excuse himself in the lobby, slip into his black limousine---no doubt such---and be whisked away to his bank HQ, or his hotel, or anywhere else more important to him and his life than a young Asian man in a suit, and a desperate smile on his face, and a cock still so engorged he could---no way!---raise to his feet and leave the room! I closed my eyes and saw him before me again, naked. I imagined the hair on his chest, the dark purple of his tiny nipples, the soft, flat stomach, with a thin, highly erotic layer of fat over his muscles, his small cock, almost invisible in a thick bush of untamed pubic hair, his heavy balls, his hairy thighs and legs. I would start to caress him there, between his toes, lick them, take them in my mouth while I entered him, and he would moan and groan, and I would rub his hairy chest and push harder, and he would spread his cheeks for me and welcome me, and call my name in his cute, girlish French voice, and simper a soft 'oui' to me, and a calculated 'fuck me!' But he was gone. The whirring of the air condition resounded loudly in my head. Someone at the dais copied the afternoon presentations onto the notebook PC. The clicking of the USB stick in its slot echoed through the open microphone. Already, somewhere high up in the hall a man snored, enjoying his lunch siesta. And I was still hard. I didn't want to fetch my lunchbox. I browsed through the messages on my phone. I too would have to return to the office. There was an urgent call from my boss. I clicked the name and the dial screen came up the moment I heard a bang from deep down in the bowels of the hall, then footsteps running. I pressed the abort button to cancel the call. The running feet sounded important, loud, some harbinger of catastrophic events. I expected a gesticulating man screaming 'fire!' and 'evacuate, now!' and 'Monsieur Lavoisier has collapsed, is there a doctor in the house?' They approached quickly. In my mind, I followed them under the stands, past the VIP room, the computer room, along the partition wall, and now, they stopped, and I heard a man coughing. I looked towards the sound as the footsteps continued their approach, now measured and slow, and---timid? No emergency after all. Three, four, five, and there he was, coming around the corner. He walked straight to the seat where I had first noticed him, the first chair in the first row. He bowed down, reached under the bench, but looked up now, and straight at me. His left hand groped at the floor. I thought for a moment he had lost something, dropped a gadget, glasses, name card, keys, and my eyes left his to look for the missing object. But immediately, as our gaze broke, he cried out, ---No, I haven't lost anything! He covered his mouth with his hand, realizing he had spoken too loud. What a little girl he was, so easily embarrassed and shy. I understood what he said, and looked quizzically at him. He was blushing! His face was completely red, from the exertion of running too, from his awkward, breath-constricting posture on the chair, from the contortion of his neck as he looked up to me. I smiled. He beamed back at me, with shimmering eyes. He took a deep breath, and then he said, ---I am at the Ambassador Hotel. Room 1214.
He said it 'twelve fourteen,' in the French way.
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