Three people ride the number 33 bus every day at the same time: a young and surprisingly tall local youth in a college or high school uniform, a blond, Germanic looking Caucasian in his thirties, always wearing a perfectly ironed shirt, an expensive, sometimes pin-striped suit, jacket slung over his arm on the hot days, carrying a full briefcase, always; and ... yes, and Mr. Chou from the Changgeng Memorial Hospital Dispensary. The basketball player is always on the bus when it reaches Dunhua Minsheng Station, where both the Caucasian and Mr. Chou get on: the old man first, the banker last, any of the housewives and office clerks who also get on here, politely in between. There is never a crowd at this station, and the thick cover of the trees offers a pleasant shade, even when they have to wait.
There are of course days when they don't meet: Mondays sometimes, when the German is not there, not back from the weekend in Hong Kong, one assumes, or a conference in Singapore, that where all the financial types go, don't they? Or Thursdays, when the basketball player is missing, and we know not why. There are days when they are all there, but one of them gets on an earlier bus -- they run every 20 minutes. There are days when they all follow their routine, but still fail to meet: occasionally Mr. Chou takes a different bus, the 285 to visit his sister. Occasionally, the banker takes a taxi from his office building, on the days when he can't face the crowds, or is late for an evening appointment. But at least two days, or three, per week, they are all there: the athlete, the banker, and the apothecary. Around six in the evening that is, usually.
The number 33 bus is not the most popular line. It leads from the north of the city, across the river, past the domestic airport, down a long and beautiful six-lane avenue lined with massive trees in four rows, down to the construction sites of Sinyi Road, where it turns east towards the 101 tower and the new office district. At the old World Trade Center it turns right, and disappears into a concrete jungle of old housing estates, all the way to the foot of the mountain.
The student is an unusual fellow. He is exceptionally tall for a Chinese, and would even stick out in an American crowed: his square jaw and beard stubble on the chin, contrast with this his dark, romantic, almost feminine eyes. He smells of muscles and running fields, of rubber, and hard work. He carries a ball in a net, and a satchel -- the old fashioned ones long gone from schools and colleges in most countries.
It might have been his height which first brought him to the attention of the banker, himself a tall man in a strange country. The bus is usually full at that hour, and the two tall men can see each other, wherever they stand on the bus, over the heads of the other occupants. They might have glanced at each other, acknowledging each other with a nod, the very first time they saw each other: one tall bloke to another; for they had little else in common.
In hindsight, Mr. Chou was convinced that they had had an eye on each other for a long time. He may even go as far as reckon that the banker now timed his arrival at the bus station, not to miss the bus with the hunky player, and he would always get on the right one, being able to see a head sticking out in the tightly packed vehicle even at rush hour. Yes, as Mr. Chou observed diligently, sat on his seat for the frail, old, pregnant or infirm, as indicated with a big blue sign, they hadn't spoken yet. But they had moved closer. He couldn't be absolutely sure: these things are often in the mind. He would observe closer. It's not like I have anything else to do, on the bus.
The Caucasian, Mr. Chou was also convinced, was working for a bank, because at times the man would come to stand right next to him, and Mr. Chou was able to smell the man -- expensive perfume, not obtrusive, but refined -- and take a peak into the briefcase, when the man opened it to retrieve his mobile phone, a newspaper, or other reading materials, on the rare occasions when there was enough room on the bus to read standing. He had, on these occasions, seen the Financial Times, and a calculator, and some paper with the simple diagonal line in a square logo of a big German bank -- hence Mr. Chou's astute deductions. He realized that he could make these observations and stare at both the banker and the basketball player unnoticed, because he, at 64 years of age, sitting on the disabled seat, was perfectly invisible to the world. In his notebook he wrote: "both a curse and a blessing."
Not entirely invisible though. When he got on the bus, someone would always rise and offer his or her seat to him. For this brief instant, he was acknowledged: the old man needing to sit down, more of a nuisance really, not one whose arrival is keenly awaited, but dreaded. Once he was in his seat, he could do what he wanted, nobody was paying attention. He had recently started taking notes, about how long the bus took each day, how many people there were on the bus, the temperature, the weather, how he felt (high blood-pressure day?), and where on the bus the two men stood, how often they looked at each other, and so on. Over the course of two weeks, they had moved closer together almost daily. They hadn't yet spoken, and their glances were still furtive. In the notebook Mr. Chou had written: "bloody hell they are taking their time."
Mr Chou learned that the tall Chinese played basketball from a conversation with a team mate conducted over a mobile phone, discussing an important game on the weekend, and making appointments for practice. It was, even without that conversation, more than obvious that the youth was a basketball player: there are very few very tall Chinese wearing college uniforms who are not basketball players. Its a game for tall men. There aren't that many tall Chinese around. Simple deduction would have sufficed, Mr. Chou chided himself, having not thought of it earlier.
Had one, in best detective fashion, taken Mr. Chou's notes to reconstruct the events which followed, one would have found a slow approach minutely documented. At first, the player and the banker had been a bus length apart: the player would always sit in the last row, where all the young people sat, Mr. Chou observed. Probably because all the old folks are in the front where the special seats are, Mr. Chou deduced. He and the banker, meeting at the Dunhua stop, would always board the bus through the front door, Mr. Chou would take a free seat, or one politely offered, and the banker would not bother to proceed much further, instead, he would stand next to Mr. Chou and grab one of the handles dangling from a chrome bar from the vehicle's roof.
The fact that the banker came to stand next to Mr. Chou on most journeys is important, even though it is entirely circumstantial. Someone would get up and offer his or her seat to Mr. Chou, Mr. Chou would then sit down, the person getting up would instinctively move back a step, creating room next to Mr. Chou, which the banker, having gotten on the bus with him, would fill, equally instinctively, often to place the newspaper closer to the light from the window. Yet without the banker standing next to him, Mr. Chou would have never looked up and realized that he was at times staring, at times furtively glancing towards the back of the bus, "more than is normal," as the notebook said.
Then the approach had started, almost immediately. The player would not be seated in the back row anymore, but instead be standing in the center of the bus, a little closer each day. The banker was unable to push back, so the player had to come to him, Mr. Chou deduced. After week three, they were standing next to each other, but still had not spoken. The athlete had abandoned his friends on the back bench, his adoring fans in similar college uniforms. Step by step and day by day, look after look from the foreigner, the athlete had moved closer, until, this Tuesday, for the first time, the two men where standing next to each other, touching when the bus rumpled over a pothole, or braked as it entered the stations. Mr. Chou had pen and paper ready to record what they would say to each other, had a new page entitled "First words:", it was an important detail, the pick-up line, the very beginning, at least the verbal beginning of ... ... but they didn't speak. It was more than shyness, there was the language barrier too, Mr. Chou reasoned. The student's English probably wasn't too good, and the banker obviously couldn't speak Chinese. The banker was also clearly older, making it almost impossible for a well-educated Chinese youth to address him informally on a bus. And then there was the awkwardness of pretense: if not gay, what reason would either have to speak to the other? Mr. Chou had thought of a few lines, and discarded them all as unrealistic, hence his apprehension.
In the evenings, after a short run, the banker often took a shower and, lathered up, caressed his own body under the massaging shower head, stroked his cock hard, as the streams of warm water washed away the milky soap, then spread his buttocks, touch his manhole with a finger, and imagined the basketball player's young cock enter him in one, big, passionate thrust.
Three weeks passed in this fashion: Mr. Chou with pen in hand, banker and player standing next to each other, touching occasionally, but not speaking. During that time, Mr. Chou made the briefest of notes, always in anticipation of a longer conversation. One of the notes read: "hands almost touching"; another: "I think the banker has a hard on"; and another: "caught the banker smelling the boy's hair. Maybe sweaty after game." Another time he observed the athlete's arm hanging down next to the banker's buttocks, and as the bus racing down Dunhua North Road got more and more crowded, it touched the buttock of the banker once ... twice ... three times, and one last time as the bus turned left at Sinyi Road, hard enough to feel the firm flesh, soft enough not to be a deliberate squeeze.
That evening Mr. Chou was watching TV in his little apartment in an old white-tiled building across from the old World Trade Center. He had prepared himself a light supper: some miso soup, some shredded fish, a bit of stir-fried vegetables; he ate that with the boiled rice left over from Sunday. Following the news came a program called "Your Money", in which, after a roundup of today's stock exchange movements and reports on the banking crisis is the US, and whether or not it will affect us; there followed a talk-show segment with a notable professional from the financial industry. Today's special guest was the country manager of a big foreign bank, whose name Mr. Chou didn't quite get, since he was in the kitchen cleaning his rice bowl when he was announced. The interviewer then switched to English and spoke to a handsome, slim, and very tall blond man about ... ... well, financial things. Mr. Chou was delighted! He went to his bookshelf and took down an English dictionary and his English Grammar book. By ten o'clock, he had composed and written down on his notepad three sentences. "I saw you on TV last night." "You were very insightful." "Sorry but my English is not very good."
The following day Mr. Chou left the dispensary with two big, green bags filled with old newspapers he had taken from the recycling stack. "Where are you going with these?" his friend and colleague had asked. "You know you don't have to take them yourself, they pick them up every Wednesday." Mr Chou hadn't bothered to explain, murmured something about needing some at home, and trotted off to the bus station, where he found the banker waiting, right foot eagerly tapping, Financial Times under his left arm. Mr. Chou put down his bags a meter away from the waiting executive and breathed heavily, clutching his notepad in his trouser pocket. He'd almost memorized the sentence anyway. The bus came, only half full today. Mr. Chou was delighted. He looked at the banker as the door opened, then bowed to pick up his bags again, when a hand grabbed the left bag and a friendly voice sad in English: "here, let me help you with these." Mr. Chou was startled, and for a moment he thought someone tried to snatch the bags from him. Then he looked up in to the smiling Caucasian face: "Oh, sank you!"
The banker helped him on the bus, led him to his seat, maneuvered the bags under the seat in front. "Very heavy, these bags. You shouldn't carry so much." Mr. Chou didn't understand very well, but he got the "heavy" part. "No heavy, ah, sank you, sank you," he repeated, slightly flustered. He hadn't planned it that way, but at least he was now talking to one of the two.
Unexpectedly, Mr. Chou was exhausted from carrying the bags from the hospital to the bus station, and now, ensconced in the plastic shell seat, was breathing heavily. How to proceed?a Where's the young basketball star ... ah there he is, moving closer already. He looked up and saw the banker do the same thing, look around, then finding the familiar and attractive face, then move forward a step to make room for the boy right next to him. As he did, a lady with a child squeezed in between them to grab better hold of a lower bar attached there. She was now between them, but because she was so small, the two men were still facing each other over her and the child's head-- close enough to talk, Mr. Chou thought, but not close enough to kiss. (For that was all he wanted: he wanted to see them kiss!)
If he had had better command of English, Mr Chou would simply have introduced himself now, and continued speaking to the handsome foreigner, who so kindly had helped him on the bus, but alas, he only had his three sentences. Then he had an idea.
At World Trade Center station, where he usually got off together with the banker, who must have been living in one of the expensive new tower blocks across from the Taipei 101 Tower, Mr. Chou thought (So why is he taken the bus anyway? Can't be for lack of money! Another mystery.), he stayed seated. The banker looked at him and sad: "You need help with your bags getting off here? I ... help ... bags." Mr. Chou shook his head. What was the word ... bus stop yes. "I next stop -- oriru tsugi" he said, realizing he was speaking Japanese again, that wasn't much use now, was it. Stupid me. With a nod, to Mr. Chou, and a long, intentional look at the basketball player the banker paid with his bus card, and stepped off the bus together with ten old ladies from the Sinyi Tea Ceremony Club, as their matching baseball hats proclaimed. It had been one of those: "I daren't speak to you (for some reason) but please read my mind, come over and love me"- look. The youth hadn't understood. For a moment, the banker froze, cursing the Internet and all its chat rooms: people didn't read faces anymore, only e-mails and texts.
Time to act, Mr Chou decided, seeing the sadness in the banker's eyes when the bus left the station again. "Come here," he said to the basketball player in his native Chinese, "listen, here is what you have to do if you ever want to talk to him. I can tell he likes you. And you like him." The player said nothing, but looked around briefly to see if anyone else could hear the man speak. "I wrote down what you can say to him. He's on TV this week, on that money show, every day after the news, for a week. Talking about stocks. Go and watch him. And tomorrow when you see him you can say: I saw you on TV. Like this, I wrote it down. You are probably just afraid to speak English, I can't either, but here ... take this." He handed the youth the notepad, got up and scrambled to the front of the bus, which was already braking for the next stop. The two stacks of old newspaper neatly packed in two bags remained where they were, under the seat.
That evening, Mr Chou sat in front of the television again, watching the blond banker, but not paying attention to what he said, even in translation. How to proceed next? Even if they talked, and met, and fell in love, who was to say ... and how arrange it, ... what if the man was married. Had there been a ring on the finger? Never paid attention, no there couldn't have been, and besides, they don't marry anymore in the West, ... well maybe some do, in certain jobs, like policemen. Here it was still common for gays to get married to a woman, especially the oldest son, had to, no way out, all that tradition. That's how Mr. Chou himself had ended up, married 38 years. ... How could he arrange it to they would talk to each other, and kiss, and be lovers. Mr. Chou had been thinking about them both for weeks. They wouldn't do it in public, and he wouldn't be invited to their homes. First, find out where and how they lived. Alone? The boy probably with family. The banker? Family? Boyfriend? Was he even gay? Maybe the athlete was much too young to comprehend. Maybe it was all in his mind, Mr. Chou thought as he tossed and turned in the sleepless heat of the night.
Less than a kilometer from the banker that night, the young basketball player lay awake, hands on his softening cock, a pool of semen on his ripped stomach slowly drying. Beside him on the nightstand lay the old man's notebook, with the three phrases on it in clumsy Roman letters. It wasn't about the phrases, he could speak decent English. It was about ... getting up the nerve to say something. He had tried so many times. He had seen the foreigner months ago in the front of the bus, taller than everyone else, but not quite as tall as he himself, slim, blond, exotic looking. In a sea of black-haired small Asians, the foreigner looked like a film star. His blond hair glistened in the sunlight falling through the tree branches on Dunhua Road. He had moved up to him, closer, and come to stand right next to him, but what to say? How to talk to him? How to know if he was gay at all? Maybe he was just being polite, or recognized him from the games on TV. The banker had been looking at him, but how was he to interpret those looks ... many people looked at him because he was tall. Many people looked at him because he was a basketball player with a national team, youngest ever. Up and coming, as they said in America. Maybe he would make it there, play for an American team ... but how if he hadn't even the nerve to talk to a stranger on the bus. What could he say? Hello, I like you, and want to fuck you? Or like they do in the movies "Can I buy you a drink?" Not on the bus, silly. What then? He'd looked for the man's profile a few gay dating sites, but in vain. Can you teach me English? He didn't look like an English teacher, with that expensive suit and briefcase, looked more like a bank manager, and always came from the direction of the bank building. Now the old man had given him a line. The foreigner was on TV obviously, they had something in common. He hadn't noticed the old man before, but he must have watched them. He must have seen them eying each other, maybe -- oh no! -- he probably saw him touch the foreigner's buttocks. That was not too strange on a full bus, and he didn't grab or squeeze or anything, he had only wanted to feel how firm the man's body was ... he liked compact, muscular bodies. He had wanted to grab so much harder! Pull him closer, rub his cock up the man's crack. He dreamed of fucking the foreigner, every night. The athlete, now wiping the remaining semen from his stomach, and, before pulling up his underpants, lifting his hanging balls from between his thighs, turned sideways, looking at the notebook. "I saw you on TV last night" it read.
The answer to Mr. Chou's questions came, as they often do, by pure chance, when he walked around the Sinyi Park that Sunday. Well, not entirely by chance, because Mr. Chou was thinking of the banker, and his realization that he would probably live in one of the new tower blocks across from the 101, so he changed his regular routine and took his stroll there. Right at the first building, he saw a blond man bent over, holding his knees, the face distorted with exhaustion and pain. The man looked up and recognized him. "Ah", Mr. Chou said. "Oh hello. You live here too ... oh of course, you get off at that stop." "I am Mr. Chou", the old man introduced himself, not having understood what the foreigner had said. "Oh hello, pleased to meet you. I am Mark." "Mark!" Mr. Chou confirmed. "I see you on TV!". "Oh yes, that ..." said the banker, out of breath.
"You run?"
"Yup. 10K on the weekends."
A quizzical look from Mr. Chou.
"10 k ... 10 kilometers ... and then in Chinese shi gongli."
Mr. Chou was surprised. "You speak Chinese."
"No, no, only a little. Very little. *Yi diandian. *I have been learning for a month only. Xue yige yue eryi."
"Oh, how nice," Mr. Chou was relieved. How very nice. The language barrier had been his biggest concern. But this friendly foreigner even spoke a bit of Chinese. That would make things easier. Na jiu mei wenti! Still, in English, he said: "How long you been in Taiwan?"
"Oh, about a year. *Yi nian. *I work for *Deyizhi Yinhang" *he said, giving his bank's name in the local version.
"I know." said Mr. Chou, "I see bag."
"My bag?"
"On the bus. I always see bag and paper."
"Oh, the briefcase. Ooops. Gotta be more careful then in future. Bank secrets and all that, haha!"
But Mr. Chou didn't understand. He was slowly piecing together the next sentence.
"You live alone?"
"Yes. All alone. I only just started at the bank, and they imm ..."
"Slow please. My English no good" Mr. Chou said.
"Ah. I am new at the bank, I said. Gang kaishi ... What is it that you do Mr. Chou? You ... gongzuo?"
"Oh, I work Changgeng Hospital ... you know?"
"Yes, where our bus stop is. The big building. I work next door. Are you a doctor?"
"Doctor? *Yisheng *No. No. I work ... yaoju"
"Yaoju?"
"Yaoju. I work ..." Mr. Chou thought of the green and white sign above his place of work, trying to put the word together, letter by letter. "Parmashi!".
"Oh, the hospital pharmacy!"
"Yes, parmashi, parmashi!" Mr. Chou was delighted. How friendly the foreigner was.
There was a pause, during which Mr. Chou desperately tried to think of a way to bring up the subject of the boy on the bus. He couldn't just ...
"Did you get home alright with your bags?"
Mr. Chou didn't understand. "Your bags ... heavy ... nide daizi"
Oh, yes, he had completely forgotten about the bags. Must still be on the bus. "Oh sank you" he said, "you help me, sank you."
"Don't mention it", the runner said, sweat dripping from his forehead still. "Listen I have to go get a shower ... I am all sweaty from the run ... xizao, wo yao xizao ... It was nice to meet you here, Mr. Chou. Hen gaoxing ah ... renzhi"
Mr Chou nodded. "Renshi ..." He was slipping away. How could ... the runner was saying something else, then turning away.
"The boy ... he like you," he blurted out, his own face turning red.
"I beg your pardon? Who?"
"The boy on bus. College boy. Tall" Mr. Chou raised his hand to a level above the banker's head. "He like you."
The runner now looked into Mr. Chou's eyes, first in surprise, then anger, then a question formed somewhere behind them, a touch of red reached both cheeks, then an answer, of course, they had been standing next to him, they were all on the bus every day, all three, "He touch you", said Mr. Chou, grabbing his own behind and making a quarter turn. "He like you, haha." The laugh broke the embarrassment, but the banker didn't speak still. He remembered the youth's hand on his behind. He hadn't been sure, then.
"I ..."
"He like you." "I know." "You talk to him." "No." "No? Why?" "He is wearing a school uniform ... he is young ... xuesheng ... tai ..." what was the word. "*nianching." *"No." "No what?" "No, he 19." "How do you know that? How you know?" Mr. Chou didn't know the right words, so he tried in Chinese, but the banker didn't get it. Then Mr. Chou had an idea. "Tonight, you TV?" "No I'm not on tonight, not anymore, it was ..." "No, you see TV." "Yes." "See sport, news after. Xinwen zhihou." "Yes?" "Watch lanqiu" "Lanqiu? Oh, basketball. You want me to watch the basketball sports news?" "Yes." "OK. Why?" "You see. Go see TV. Now shower" Mr Chou laughed. "Xizao, xizao!"
That evening, after a long shower, a salad, a filled rice triangle from the 7-ELEVEN store, and a beer, the banker sat in his spacious but empty living room, and watched TV, as he had done for the past month anyway, to practice his Chinese. He had trouble understanding anything, and usually was switching channels to something English long before the sport news came on. Today he stayed with TTV, and when, after endless commercial interruptions, the first news item in the sports segment finally came on, he almost dropped his beer can. There he was: young, gorgeous, smelling of rubber and sweat, in his team uniform, on the court, handling the ball with grace, the shirt now lifted as he jumped to reveal taut stomach muscles, perfectly flat six-pack, smooth, unblemished skin, with drops of sweat, the outline of his cock swinging in the baggy shorts, high-fiving his team mates as he turned around. Mark didn't understand any of the comments, but he saw the match highlights, realized his schoolboy on the bus was more than a schoolboy, he was a basketball star, a hot shot, for some team with blue uniforms, the name made of two Chinese characters he hadn't learned yet. His own cock in a tight grip, he stroked himself while he watched the graceful dance on the court, the jumps, the turns, the tumbles, the glimpses of flesh, the full exposure as the athlete raised his shirt over his head, showing off his muscular abs, his marvellous chest, sweat streaming past his two nipples down the hairless washboard into his groin.
Monday came and found Chou and the banker at the bus station earlier than ever before. Mr. Chou smiled at Mark, FT clutched under his arm as usual.
"You see TV?" said Mr. Chou, looking straight ahead across the lanes of Dunhua Road. "Yes" said the banker "thank you". Mr. Chou grinned.
The bus came, and the basketball player was already standing towards the front of the bus. The banker helped Mr. Chou up the steps, one, two, three, and accompanied him to his seat. Mr Chou settled in, and looked out the window, smiling. The two tall men's glances didn't meet at all at first, both seemed nervous. Mr. Chou looked at the banker's palm dangling next to him: it was glistening with sweat. The basketball player looked out the window, then cleared his throat as if to speak, but didn't. The banker was about to take the newspaper from under his arm, then thought better of it and left it there tightly clamped. Mr. Chou was an impatient man. Well go on then, he thought, as the bus pulled into the forth station. We are almost at Sinyi Road! Get on with it!
As the bus turned left, the basketball player looked up and met the bankers eyes. The two men smiled at each other, then opened their mouths simultaneously, and blurted out: "I saw you on TV!" Mr. Chou giggled like a girl, and clapped his hands. That instant, a a motorcycle cut cross the bus lane, the bus driver stepped on the brakes, and the banker was thrown right into the athlete's arms.
Other stories by the Author:
/nifty/bisexual/beginnings/alex /nifty/gay/authoritarian/taunus-slut /nifty/gay/authoritarian/helping-out /nifty/gay/authoritarian/shopping-in-dubai /nifty/gay/encounters/fathers-day /nifty/gay/encounters/turnvater-jahns-boys /nifty/gay/encounters/seat-72 /nifty/gay/encounters/on-the-train-from-rouen