“Clément. You pronounce it just like C-L-A-Y-M-O-N-T, but it’s spelled C-L-É-M-E-N-T. My friends just call me Clay, though.”

I didn’t see why I shouldn’t be open with him about my name—or anything else he wanted. He had a nice smile, and from what I could see of him, he had a good body. A great body if you took into account that he was probably in his mid-thirties. Why was I checking out his body? I was in a gay bar in Berlin, trying to drum up a bit of need cash to get me through to the end of the month. This wasn’t what I did all of the time—selling my services—but it’s what I did when I wasn’t going to make it to the end of the month with my writing.

Although the man was seated, I could tell that he’d be tall when he stood—big hands. He was starting to go bald, his forehead being quite high in the middle. But his honesty in not hiding that was fine with me. His face was good—his features rugged, but masculine. And, as I’d already noted, he had a nice smile—not predatory. Best of all, though, I had found that there was a hundred-euro bill laying next to my beer glass when I sat down. That was worth me being open with him.

“I’m Gerhardt,” he said. “Clément. That sounds French, but you don’t—”

“It is. My family is from Martinique, which was Dutch and French. And I’m here by way of New Orleans, in the United States—a couple of generations back. I’m an American.”

“You’re an American, but living in Germany?” We were seated in a gay bar in Berlin.

“Are you wondering whether I’m black?” I asked. “Do you want me to be black or do you have no interest in going with a black?” I was part black, but it didn’t show too much.

“It would be just fine to know you are black,” he said, raising the tips of the fingers of one hand to my face and running the fingers down my cheek to my jaw line. It was our first physical contact, and it made me shudder. I didn’t go with men in a pinch just for the pay. I liked being with a man.

“I find what I like here in Germany,” I said, answering the question he’d actually asked. “I can’t have what I really like in the United States,” I responded.

“I could tell that you had some sort of accent. It sounds nice. Sexy.”

“And you could tell that I’m black, but not completely so. My people came to Martinique as slaves from Senegal, but, once there, they mixed with the Dutch and French. So, I’m quite a mix.”

“Quite a mix, indeed. The best of all the parts. You’re a beautiful young man, Clément. I’m from Hamburg. I guess if you shared so can I. Scandinavian before that, I guess. What brings you to Berlin from New Orleans, Clément? I like saying that name. I’d think you would be perfect in a New Orleans setting. Not that you aren’t perfect right here too. Clay is a nice name too. I’d like to be your friend, so I’ll use that name.”

“Thanks. I’m a writer. Or trying to be. It’s hard freelancing in English here in Berlin. I don’t know how much longer I can hang on here. But, as I said, opportunities are open to me here that aren’t in the States.”

“Fiction or nonfiction?”

“Newspaper and magazine features when I can.”

“Financial problems? That’s why you’re doing what you are here, in this bar? Why you went in the back with that man?”

Gerhardt had been in this bar for a while and we’d exchanged looks before the john came in and engaged my oral services in the hallway behind the bar, through the beaded curtain.

“Yes.” He’d brought me back to earth and I was a bit irritated. “What is it you want, Gerhardt? What do you want me to do for this hundred euros laying here by my beer glass? Or did it just find its way on the table on its own?”

“You are quite direct, aren’t you?”

“I don’t have the time or privilege of being otherwise. There’s dinner to be paid for. I don’t normally do this. But it’s near the end of the month and I need dinner.”

“I’ll take you to dinner. I’m interested in your writing. I edit for the “Männer mit Knaben Magazin”—the “Men with Boys Magazine.” No, really I do.” I must have given him a disbelieving look. “We’re always looking for writing talent. I’d like to see some of your work.”

“There is such a magazine?” I asked.

“Yes, of course. This is Germany.”

There it was then. What I did for pay wasn’t quite what I did for pleasure. “So, you didn’t just randomly pick me? You knew what I liked? You are interested in me as a writer and know what I might be interested in writing about—because I’m interested in engaging in it.”

There, is was said plain enough. I liked fucking fourteen-year-old boys. I liked fucking someone still young and innocent and nubile and yet on the cusp of turning into a man. And fourteen was the age of consent in Germany.

“Yes, the bartender here told me both that you were a writer and what you liked.”

“I’m not fourteen, you know.”

“I didn’t think so, but you do look very young. And my own interests are broad. You interest me because you are a writer as much as by what you indulge in. I myself have an upper limit of twenty-two, and they have to retain some attributes of youth. I have no real lower limit, though, as long as they are going through puberty at least.”

He was being quite open and honest about it.

“Well, that’s a new come-on line. You’ll pay me hundred euros to look at samples of my work?” There was a fifty-fifty chance he was shitting me about working for a newspaper just to get in my pants. If so, he was trying too hard. What I liked about him and that hundred-euro bill was all he needed to fuck me.

“No, since you want to be direct. I’ll pay you hundred euros to lie on your back and take my cock—twice, if I like the first time. I like the youthfulness of you. You arouse me. Is that direct enough for you? And if I like your writing, I might give you a job. If you’re a good submissive, I might do both—give you a job—and pay to fuck you regularly until you have lost your boyish freshness. Deal?”

“Yes. Take me to dinner and then I’ll take you to my place, such as it is; show you samples of my writing; and let you fuck me.” I reached out and covered the hundred-euro note with my hand. He didn’t move to take it away from me.

“We have until midnight,” I said, as we reached the fourth landing of the old nondescript apartment house on the Leitzenburger Strasse. We were headed to the sixth floor. There was no elevator. “I have a roommate, but he’s in school at nights and isn’t home now,” I said as we huffed up the stairs.

Hans wasn’t really at school. He was out on the streets, hustling just like I had been doing when Gerhardt picked me up. I didn’t expect him home for a while. There was time enough for whatever we were going to do. I didn’t usually bring men home, but my apartment was close to where we had dinner and Gerhardt Heinz—he’d told me his full name over dinner and I’d told him mine, Clément LeBrand—didn’t offer to take me to his place. So, he probably had a partner too, I surmised, he wasn’t telling he was stepping out on. He told me he lived over on Templehofer Ufer, close to the “Männer mit Knaben Magazin” office and not very close to where we were. He said he couldn’t wait as long as it would take for us to get there. That sounded like a nice excuse, at least. Plus, if he was on the up and up about being a newspaper editor and wanted to see a sample of my work, that would have to be at my place, where my laptop was.

He looked around, which didn’t take long, when we entered the studio apartment. It was essentially one room, with a bath, a kitchenette on one wall, and one window overlooking an alley and the brick wall of the building next door.

“There’s only one bed. You said you had a roommate.”

“Yes, one bed, and I have a roommate,” I answered. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No,” he answered and then gave a little laugh to cover the question he wasn’t asking. “You have samples of your writing to show me?”

“You want to do that first?” I asked, a bit incredulously. I already had pulled my T-shirt over my head and he’d given me a big smile. For many men, I knew my willowy figure would be somewhat of a disappointment. I didn’t think it would be from what he’d said in the bar, and his smile and intake of breath assured me that was the case.

“OK,” I said when he seemed not able to stop looking to answer me. “The laptop is on the table over there.” I pointed to the small table with the two straight chairs pulled in under it. Other than that and the bed, we had a worn-and-slit-leather sofa and an easy chair. The large-screen TV was on the wall over the kitchenette appliances, the countertop refrigerator, stove, and the piece de resistance that justified the outrageous rent, a washer-dryer combination. “It’s just sleeping. I have a work in progress on it, but it’s far enough along to give you an idea of my writing. I did go to college in journalism—Southern University, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, if you know where that is.”

“Yes, it’s near New Orleans, where you said your family came from. I’ve been to New Orleans. You went to college?” he added, sounding a bit incredulous, as he sat down at the table, his attention away from me, and woke the laptop up.

“Yes, did I sound like I was a dummy?”

“No, you sound quite educated—with a kicky American accent—from the South of the United States, I believe. But you look like you are eighteen—at least I hoped you were. I was afraid to ask.”

“I’m twenty,” I said. “High school bored me. I went through it early and sped on to college.”

“College didn’t bore you?”

“The other students and the professors had cocks.”

“Ah. Great genes then—a great, boyish body,” he answered, but his voice sounded a little distant. He was engrossed in reading my article draft I was freelancing for the “Gay & Lesbian Literary Review” in New York City. He left me fidgeting there for several minutes while he read.

“Yes. Very good. You can write.” He did some keying work on the computer and then said, “I’m serious when I say I edit for the ‘Männer mit Knaben Magazin.’ Here’s our masthead. You can see my name. I’m also serious in maybe you working for us. What do you think—?” But then he stopped as he’d turned and looked at me. I’d stripped down and was standing there, totally naked. “Heilige Scheisse!—Holy shit, you’re beautiful. And sexy as hell,” he said. “Such a boyish—”

“It grows significantly when it needs to,” I answered, knowing where his attention had gone.

“It doesn’t have to for me,” he answered.

He forgot all about the laptop then and rose from the chair, stripping off his shirt as he did so; was close to me in two strides; went down on his knees’ and took my cock in his mouth. I showed him that it was true what I said—that it grew to respectable dimensions, given it received attention. His hands went to cupping my buttocks, which was a good thing, because he was so good at sucking me off that my knees turned to rubber and all that was holding me up was his grip on my buttocks and my hands gripping his head.

When I warned him that I would come if he didn’t let up, he let up and pulled his mouth off my dick. Then he stood as I went down on my knees; unbuckled and unzipped him; pulled his trousers and briefs down to his ankles, with him stepping out of them; and serviced his cock with my mouth. He was what you’d call a reddish blond on top, which got redder as the pattern of swirling tufts of hair covered his pecs and then descended in a line to his bush, which was a flaming red. His cock was long, at least seven inches, but not appreciably thick.

He was a considerate blow job subject, holding my head in his hands, crouching a bit to reduce his height to my convenience where I knelt, and moaning and whispering encouragement to me, letting me know what he liked and what he liked better, warning me when he might not be able to stem his coming and letting me back off and suck his balls until he signaled that I could swallow him again. I deep-throated him, but he let me control that completely, allowing me to pull off before I gagged on him.

He was attentive to me in the first fuck too. We were on the sofa, lengthwise, my back reclining against pillows jammed into the arm of the sofa, my ankles on his shoulders, as, on his knees on the sofa cushion, he worked his way inside me, his eyes capturing mine, speaking to me dirty in low tones, taking his time penetrating me to where his red pubic curlies mingled with my black ones. “Beautiful boy,” he murmured. “Take it for Daddy.”

Then, patiently, he held, fully sheathed inside me, more than seven throbbing inches of him, not seeming thick when I’d eyeballed his equipment, but feeling very thick inside me—and impossibly long, possessing me deep. We kissed deeply, and then he pulled his face away from mine, encircling my neck with his arms, holding me there in thrall, his cock throbbing deep inside me, as I built up the need for him. I writhed under him as much as his close embrace permitted, and, eventually begged him for the fuck. Then, with a low laugh, he started to pump me, with me primed to move my pelvis with him. He pumped me increasingly harder and faster, and I cried out in passion and went with him, my hand on my cock, stroking away to the same rhythm he was pumping me. With a cry I shot up his belly, and soon thereafter he stiffened, gave a low cry of his own, and filled the bulb of his condom.

“Du bist sehr gut—You’re very good. Jung, nubile, nachgiebig—Young, nubile, yielding,” he murmured afterward, still inside me, both of us concentrating on him going flaccid, but buried deep enough not to lose purchase. He was being considerate, bearing the weight of his solid six something frame on top of my slim five-foot-six on his knees and with his forearms resting on the arm of the sofa on either side of my chest, inside my own arms, which I had encircling his chest.

“Du bist besser—You’re better,” I answered before he locked his lips on mine and we went into a deep kiss session, during which I felt his cock engorge again.

“Call me Vater—Daddy—again,” he whispered. “You did that while I was inside you, and I liked it.”

“Du bist besser, Vater,” I murmured.

“You said there would be a second if you approved of the first,” I whispered as we came out of the kiss. “It feels like—”

“Ja, Ich will dich wieder ficken—Yes, I want to fuck you again. Do you want it?”

“Yes,”

“Not just because I am offering you a job?”

“No, because your cock is magic and you make me explode.”

“I’ll not pay you more.”

“I don’t need more from you. What I need from you is your cocking.”

He laughed, pulled out of me long enough to retrieve another condom from the pocket of his trousers and crown himself. I saw him pause and lift his eyebrows when he tossed the used condom in the wastebasket next to the bed and saw others there. But what did he expect? Neither Hans nor I were good at housekeeping. He returned quickly, turned me over so that my belly was over the sofa arm and my head and arms were hanging toward the floor, mounted me, and fucked the shit out of me. No long hold inside me to experience my buildup of need. He had his own need. He fucked me hard, fast, and deep, inclined like a board on top of me, the balls of his feet pressed into the sofa cushion, his hands gripping my waist, and fucking the hell out of me—making me explode.

“Ja, ja, ja, Vater. Vater! Gib es mir!—Give it to me!” I cried out as he tensed, jerked, and ejaculated.

“You want a beer?” I asked when we were done and he was back at the table, reading a finished article of mine on the laptop. We were both still naked.

“Do we have time?”

I looked at the clock on the nightstand, which showed that it nearly was 9:00 p.m. “We have time for that and more,” I said.

He laughed, but he continued reading on the laptop. “This is good, really good,” he said.

“Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say, but then I did say, “You know I don’t offer a beer to a john after he’s fucked me unless I liked it. I don’t give him a freebie unless I liked what he’d done and paid me.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” he said, but he continued reading for a while. I noticed he was half hard again. The man had marvelous recovery ability. I walked around the room, not being able to settle. I couldn’t stand being right there while someone was reading my work. It wasn’t like they were off somewhere else reading what already had been through editing, published, and paid for.

After several minutes, he turned and looked at me, and said, “You are so beautiful, and such a sweet lay. You want me to fuck you again? I want to fuck you again, but I still wouldn’t pay for it. I’ve offered you a job. That should be enough for me to have privileges.”

I looked at the clock. 9:20 p.m. “Yeah, I want you to fuck me again. But shouldn’t you be getting home? Don’t you have someone who’s expecting you home?”

“He knows I work all hours at the newspaper. It’s what newspapermen do; he’s used to it. And he has to be in bed by this time. He has school.”

“He’s in school?”

“Yes. He’s fourteen.”

“A son?”

“No. A lover.” He was giving me a steady look. “I practice what I write about. I was told you do too.”

I was about to say something, but we both turned to look toward the door as a key turned in the lock. The door opened, and Hans stood there. He quickly took stock of the room, both Gerhardt and me being naked. “I could come back,” he said and started to turn.

“No need. Come on in, Hans,” I said. “Gerhardt, this is Hans, my roommate. Gerhardt here is a magazine editor. I brought him back here because he wanted to see some of what I’ve written. He may offer me writing assignments.”

Hans smiled at Gerhardt. Gerhardt smiled back. “How old are you, Hans?” he asked.

“He’s fourteen,” I answered.

There was a pause before Gerhardt said, “And is he for sale as you are, Clay?”

“Yes.” This answer came from Hans. “Are you interested? Do you have fifty euros?”

Gerhardt fucked Hans on the bed, slowly and sensually, as I sat in the desk chair and watched. Hans was stretched out on his belly and Gerhardt was stretched out on top of the boy. He was fisting Hans’s wrists, holding his arms over his head, Hans’s fists wrapped around brass slats in the headboard. The boy’s legs were spread wide, held there by Gerhardt’s legs. Both of them had their knees dug into the mattress, giving them leverage to move their hips. Their only moving parts were their pelvises, Gerhardt’s rising and falling as he mined Hans’s ass deep, and Hans going with the rhythm Gerhardt was setting. The man had his mouth buried in the hollow of the boy’s throat and was whispering dirty words to the lad as he fucked him and fucked him and fucked him.

Afterward, Hans lay there on his back on the bed, a look of total satisfaction on his face, as I saw Gerhardt to the door.

“The address of the magazine is there on the computer screen,” Gerhardt said. “9:00 Monday morning. I’ll leave it to personnel to tell you about the salary and benefits, but I’m sure it’s better than you are managing now. You want the job, though, I have free access to your ass. And you keep clean for me. No barebacking. I now own your ass. I’ll pay for Hans, though, when I want him.”

“You can give out jobs just like that?” I asked.

“Yes. I do the hiring of the writers,” he said. “I already have an assignment—a foreign assignment—in mind for you.” And then he was gone, and I had a job at last. It was time to celebrate.

I walked over to the bed and climbed on top of Hans. He opened his arms to pull me in, and I penetrated him and began to pump.

“What the hell sort of name is LeBrand?”

“No one I asked could tell me for sure, other than it’s either French or Dutch,” I answered. I’d let him think that I was Clay rather than Clément. I didn’t think he’d care that there was a difference. He seemed the dominating type, which I, in fact, found attractive—especially because he was massive, all muscle, and he was black, black, black.

We were at the Rosenkavalier restaurant in what had been the wine cellar of a German baron’s townhouse in Berlin. Gerhardt had said there was someone he wanted me to meet, and Gerhardt was still calling the shots between us—not so much during off hours as he spread his interests around a lot, but certainly while on the clock with “Männer mit Knaben Magazin,” where he’d come through in getting me a writing job that more than took care of my needs. I’d thanked him by doing a job that everyone above him thought was professional enough for me to merit the position without also letting him fuck me. He still did that well, when he did it. He appeared to take Hans away to fuck him more now than he did me.

Life got in the way for both of us and we cooled down the hot and heavy within a couple of weeks. That had been almost three months ago. He’d brought a cute fourteen-year-old boy, named Klaus, to this dinner. I hoped he hadn’t done so to signal to me that he and I wouldn’t be hooking up after this dinner meeting. Klaus was not the boy Gerhardt was living with. The way the boy comported himself told me he probably was a rent-boy.

“Funny name for a black guy—although you aren’t that black. Black enough to be my kind of meat—dark meat, good enough for me to shoot one up your tailpipe.” The man we were dining with certainly didn’t mince words. Gerhardt had told me, though, that the man was actively—and dominatingly—gay. He had added that, although like Gerhardt and me, he preferred boys of fourteen, like Gerhardt, the man’s interests ran to young men of my age as well.

“He says he doesn’t feel he can be rough with the boys,” Gerhardt had said. I was still mulling what he meant by that.

Was that why Gerhardt wanted me to meet this Andre Jackson, I wondered. He’d been introduced as an American photojournalist for “Bunte,” the German equivalent of “People” magazine. Gerhardt had said it almost in reverential tones. The man was a real bruiser. Not much more than thirty and in bodybuilder shape. Not someone you’d want to mess with, certainly not in an alley. But he dressed expensively—casual, but it was all expensive. The sweater shirt had to be cashmere. That it was white and pulled tight over his muscled chest enough that I could see the form of the bar piercings in his nipples and get a hint of a left arm and pec busy tattoo pattern, that just added mystery and danger to him.

The nipple piercings hinted at gay; the crack about sending something up my tailpipe more than hinted at it—and a top. It had made me go hard. He’d be a forceful and cruel dominator, I was sure.

Was Gerhardt selling me to him for some sort of return favor? For Gerhardt to get an article in “Bunte” magazine? Did I care? I wondered if he was a black bull—hung like a bull. He certainly met the specifications in external looks. When I’d told him my ancestors were from the Caribbean, he told me his were from the Congo, and he gave me a smile, like I’d know that that meant something. I only learned later that men from the Congo, as a group, have the longest cocks on record. He certainly challenged the record.

And then, yep, he had his hand on my thigh under the table top. The finger spread was massive, the grip strong. I laid my hand on his thigh, in turn. No pressure in the grip, though, signaling I was a submissive—and, more important, willing. Just to be sure, I moved my hand to on top of his and played with the back of his broad hand with my fingers. Gerhardt was giving Klaus moon eyes from across the table. I could tell that he’d been tense about a meeting between me and Jackson—not knowing how two black Americans would match up—but he clearly was relaxed now.

“The island of Martinique,” I explained. “My family came from there to New Orleans. Both the French and Dutch were prominent there—they messed around with their slaves sent over from Africa. I probably got the name the same way you got Jackson. Some white man laid your great-great-great slave grandmother.”

“Well, you’re light skinned enough to almost pass—probably more than one plantation owner fucking his female slaves in your background.”

“Sorry,” I said, “that I can’t be as pure black as you.”

“No, no, on you it looks good.” His hand went higher on my thigh. “And if we do this assignment together, You’ll fit in almost as well as I will.”

“Ditto on you, on black looking good on you,” I answered. I didn’t know what was up on the possible assignment together yet, so I didn’t comment on that part. I was sure now that Gerhardt was giving me to this guy for sex, though, and I couldn’t wait to find something out. I cupped his crotch. As I hoped, he was hung like a horse—and hard. He smiled and did the same with me. Luckily, I was turgid as well. He might not have been impressed with me in my resting mode.

Gerhardt could hardly avoid knowing we were feeling each other up under the table. “Andre wanted to meet you, Clay, because I’d mentioned to him that you were a good writer and he needs a writer to go on a ‘Bunte’ magazine assignment with him.”

“A foreign assignment?” I asked, turning my attention to Gerhardt, who was sitting across the table from Andre and me.

“Yes, I think I’d mentioned that possibility when I first was considering hiring you at ‘Männer mit Knaben Magazin.’”

“Where? What sort of assignment? I’m not wild about going into war zones. Not really into bravery or bullets.”

“But you do have a passport?”

“Yes. I still have an American passport”

“What are you into?” Andre turned and asked. “Into what you are feeling up now? Do you approve of the feel of my basket? Are you up for a trial ride?”

“I could be. I’d like to hear about what the magazine assignment angle is, though”

“The two are tied together,” the black man said. “I take my pleasures with me on foreign assignments when I can.”

“Ever hear of Gunther Schmidt?” Gerhardt asked.

“The male Mother Theresa? The guy with all of the awards? The guy who gave up a cushy medical position in Germany to go to Africa to save the people?”

“Yes, the same. Ever hear of Tambacounda?”

“No, can’t say that I have,” I answered. “Was it on the menu here?” I’d taken my hand away from Andre’s crotch, but he hadn’t followed suit. I widened my stance and scooted my butt to the edge of the banquette bench seat, and he was doing a serious fondle of my package. I was hard for him, and if he went on with this another ten minutes or so, he’d rub one out of me.

“That’s where Dr. Schmidt’s clinic is,” Gerhardt continued. “It’s in a very remote area of Senegal, on the West Coast of Africa. I think you told me your ancestors were from there—from where Senegal is now. I thought you might like to see where they came from. It pays eight thousand euros for two months, a thousand a week, plus all expenses. The two of you, Andre and you. It’s a ‘hunting Dr. Schmidt’ piece for ‘Bunte.’ Something like the search for Dr. Livingstone or coverage of Albert Schweitzer when he went off to Africa to dedicate himself to caring for the natives. You wouldn’t be losing your job with the paper; you can come back to us at the end of the assignment, and you can get credit for filing any side articles you write while you’re gone.”

“Just the two of us? Andre and me? Is it just because I’m a writer whose ancestors came from Senegal that you’ve gotten Andre interested in me?”

“Not at all,” Andre said, with a grin. “Your connection to Senegal is important, yes. But it’s mainly because I have this medical problem. I’m oversexed and have to fuck someone daily. Gerhardt here told me that you not only were a good writer and have ties with Senegal but also that you were a great lay. He told me you could take a Congo python.”

“A Congo python?” I asked, trying not to accompaniment it with a laugh.

“Yes, that’s what I call it,” Andre said.

“Take him seriously on that,” Gerhardt chimed in.

“If I choose you to go with me,” Andre added, “I’ll fuck you every day. It won’t be long before you are reamed to fit.”

“If you choose me?” I said. “So, it’s not a done deal? And it’s your choice to make?”

“No, it’s not a done deal. And I wouldn’t make my choice without a sample. My hotel’s nearby—the Axel Hotel Berlin in the Schöneberg district.”

“I can show you a sample of my writing right here,” I said. “I have my laptop with me.”

“That’s not the kind of sampling I want to do,” Andre said.

“And if I don’t want to go to Africa on this hunt for Dr. Schmidt?” I asked.

“I’m still taking you to my hotel and fucking the stuffing out of you. I don’t want to waste my evening. Are you going to object to that?”

“No, not at all.”

He had every right to call it a Congo python. I couldn’t even begin to guess how thick and long it was. I worked hard to take it, but when I had, I glorified in the accomplishment. And he was an ebony god. His muscles had muscles. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He fucked me on the floor in a primeval taking. He did more than just fuck me, though. He was rough. He gave me time to adjust to him until he was satisfied he could bottom and that he could move it inside me with little effort, using a whole hell of a lot of lubricant.