In many respects it was my own fault. I’d sent Jason Magubi that letter saying I’d do anything to be able to sit in his player’s box at the U.S. Open Tennis championships. I’d worshipped the big, strapping black pro tennis player since the twenty-three-year old broke onto the tennis scene. He was tall, over six foot six, and big, muscular, solid. He had a fast, heavy serve to die for. It had brought him into the quarterfinals of the tournament.

And the invitation had come, by way of his physical trainer, to sit in his box. Quite an honor for a fourteen-year-old TV actor. I was in a situation drama set in New York, which, luckily, was on hiatus that week. I played a troubled family son uncertain of his sexuality. I had no trouble playing the part. My agent had said that it was risky, but we’d signed up anyway and he didn’t regret it, because the paycheck was hefty and steady. Clifford knew I was working with the knowledge I was gay, although I hadn’t done anything overt about it yet. He took that into account both whether I could handle the part and whether my fans could, reasoning in the end that I might as well face it sooner than later and that, if I was going to declare gay, the fans would find out anyway. What happened after that was what happened. Being gay was no longer a career killer in the entertainment industry. I was at the beginning of a career. It was loose enough to establish myself as this or that now.

But I hadn’t really decided anything definite myself yet. I was only fourteen. I told myself that it was Magubi’s play and the way he moved like a dancer, albeit a hundred-and-eighty-pound dancer, on the court that attracted me. I did look at men and assess them as future bed partners, though. I had looked at Magubi that way. He had scored very high. He was very African, which gave me the feeling he’d be primeval, commanding, and very direct. I thought that sex with him would be natural, bold, and maybe a little wild. But, then, I’d never done it, so it was just feelings. I admit that muscular black men aroused me. There was something breathlessly taboo about them, and I rebelled against being told something was taboo for me.

Magubi’s trainer talked to my agent when I was accepting the invitation to set in the player’s box for his quarterfinals match. The trainer said I had to understand that if Magubi lost, he very likely would be in a sulk and would want to be alone in his hotel room, but if he won, he’d want to party and he’d want everyone in his player’s box to party with him. So, they couldn’t say when to pick me up. The trainer would see that I got back to the apartment where my studio-provided companion couple lived with me during the New York filming. My family lived in Flagstaff, Arizona. That’s where I lived, on a ranch my salary largely paid for, when the TV series wasn’t in production.

Clifford was fine with that arrangement. I wasn’t really asked what I felt about it. It would be fine with me, if I had been asked, though. I felt my companion couple could be stifling. I rarely could get out on my own.

Magubi won. He was ecstatic. He took us all, everyone in his player’s box, out on the town—for supper and then to a club afterward. I was, of course, too young to go to the club, but the group just swept me in with the rest and the bouncers said nothing. Everyone in New York knew of Magubi’s epoch win. He was the last American, albeit a second-generation Congolese, let in the U.S. Open. His rise had been like a rocket. He was in heaven.

He kept saying he was happy I was there, partying with them. He mentioned what I said in my letter—that I’d do anything to be in the player’s box—and he had me seated next to him in the club, and put an arm around me while he acted the king of the world.

I wasn’t old enough to drink, either, but it was put in front of me, no one saying anything about it, and I drank it. I wasn’t drunk or anything when we left the club at midnight and the group split up for their own accommodations, but I was tipsy. The trainer and Magubi offered me a ride. I accepted. The ride wasn’t to my apartment; it was to Magubi’s hotel room. By then I couldn’t say I didn’t know what was coming down. The trainer was driving and Magubi was in the backseat with me, kissing me and fondling me. I didn’t resist.

When the car stopped in front of Magubi’s hotel, I knew. By then, he’d gotten my legs spread and had a hand high up on my inner thigh. If we’d had two more blocks to drive, either I or he would have been unzipped. And I don’t think I would have resisted that either.

The trainer went upstairs with us, turning the car over to a valet, and he was there, somewhere in the suite, near the door to the corridor, the rest of the time I was there—or at least as long as Magubi was there.

Magubi offered me another drink and I took it. It was drugged, I’m sure of that. It didn’t make me sick, but it made me lethargic. It also made me tingle and feel very sexy when he touched me. We sat on the sofa in his room, with him reliving nearly every point of his match, euphoric about the day, but also attentive to me. I was feeling all loose and “whatever” and sighing whenever he touched me, and, as he talked, expressively using his hands, he used his hands on me—touching, fondling, and, eventually, undressing. I did nothing to stop him. He was a god. I was there for him.

I found myself lying on my back along the sofa cushions and Magubi, big, black, also naked now, in huge, black erection, sitting beside me, gliding his hands all over me, kissing me on the mouth and the throat and the nipples. He was a big, black god. And then his lips were on my belly on the way to kissing my cock and taking it in his mouth. I lay there, moaning and letting him do what he wanted.

The black god was giving me head. The man of the hour was giving me intimate attention.

He put his hand under the sofa and came up with a dildo and a bottle of lube and two condom packets.

He kissed me and asked, “Have you done it before? Have men—?”

“Yes,” I lied. I don’t know why I lied, but I did. I think it was because it was what I wanted. It seemed to be a little late to be asking. I wasn’t being asked for it, not exactly. He seemed to have bypassed that and gone on to other questions. But even not in being asked to agree to it, I think that helped me not resist, not that whatever drug I was given would have enabled me to resist. He was a lot bigger than me and a whole lot stronger. I think being taken without giving permission—being forced, if that was what this was to be—made it more agreeable to me.

He leaned over me, his face close to mine, his eyes capturing mine, as he put my left ankle on his right shoulder, encased my cock with his left hand, stroking it, and using the right hand to penetrate, invade, open up, spread, and stretch my virginal passage with the dildo. I didn’t tell him the passage was virginal. I endured.

I moaned and groaned and in slow motion, probably because of the drug, writhed under him, my facial expressions clearly exhibiting the pain-passion of working me as he was. I also, though, rocked my pelvis with the movement of the dildo inside me, which surely told him I was being pleasured. It was as good as saying “yes” to him. With tensing, jerks, and thrusts of my pelvis, I gave a little cry and came in his hand.

“Nice,” he murmured. “You give it up like a virgin.” He didn’t know the half of that.

He turned me, moving me up to where my belly was stretched over the arm of the sofa and my head and arms hung down the side. I was on my knees in the sofa. Magubi moved on top of me, his feet planted in sofa cushion on either side of my calves. He was mounted on top and behind me. This was it. I was going to be fucked in the ass.