"You ain't a bad lay yourself, fucker!" I smiled. "Get
up here!"
He scooted up beside me and chuckled as he blew
on my nose. "Do I have cum breath?" he teased.
"I don't know. Lemme see," I said, pulling his sweet
face to mine, passionately kissing him. "Tastes all right to
me!"
We had planned to take a little post-play nap. We
didn't wake until the morning.
SANDER AND JOHNNIE were in the final throes of their
lovemaking. It was the sex before their work-forced
separation, and they were as passionate and as loving as
the first time they were together those many months ago at
the Nyhavn 71 Hotel in Copenhagen.
They were not alone.
Outside their door the engorged penis of their
watcher was furiously being pounded to orgasm. He was
enthralled by the activity he espied. His feelings were
many, were convoluted, were inappropriate. This he knew,
but his urge trumped the loyalty he knew he should have
practiced. The decency. Especially after all they had done
for him. He knew it was wrong. He knew he was breaking
trust. He knew.
He came in four huge spurts, this time landing one
of them on the door. He wouldn't be able to wipe that one
away with a sock. And if he tried to clean it off, the door
would have creaked open, giving him away. He pulled up
his pants and flitted away. He hated himself.
Chapter 21
arge told me to ride the train into Copenhagen. I
was to leave my car at home. I would receive
M departure instructions from the office on
Amaliegade, which would lead me to the contact that had
the actual mission sensitive material. All of this for an
assignment that was a Virgin trip. What's a Virgin trip?
One that maxes out at seventy-two hours. Why is it called
a Virgin trip? Because there's one virgin for each hour.
There is no business in the world that I know of
that has a catalogue of inappropriate humor as large and
as politically incorrect as the intelligence community does.
And a lot of it these days comes from anti-Arabic, Islamic,
and Israeli sentiments and shop talk.
The CIA is a very alpha-male-centric organization,
regardless of one's actual gender. And, thankfully, the
sensitivity police have been held at bay for the foreseeable
future, because the sarcastic nature inherent in such jabber
can be a soothing coping mechanism when things don't go
our way.
So, thanks to Allah's 72 virgins and our
disdain for his way of doing things, we have a fun little
code word for a three day job.
"Somebody order a pizza?" I joked, entering the
sparse and chromatic offices of the Artists Central Agency,
a real live talent agency for artists in all mediums. It also
happened to be a U.S. Government CIA field station.
Marge was no longer posted to this office, but a very nice
lady from Indiana called Stogie Murphy was ready with
the particulars for her part of the assignment.
"Forget it, fella, I'm watching my weight," she
quipped. "You, on the other hand, could use about three
pies. I swear you get sexier by the day. Tell me it's a gay
thing!"
"Maybe! Never thought about it," I answered.
"Well if it is, I'd turn dyke in a flash. My luck, I'd
just be one a them lumber jack-lookin' ones and I'd be
doomed to be the Chas Bono of Steubenville," she joked.
"That's in Ohio!"
"If I'm a gay lumberjack, ain't no way I'm goin' back
to Indiana, sweet cheeks. I think I'm doomed to be a fat
housewife for Stan and my soul-sucking kids anyways."
"I think you're cute!"
"I think you're blind. Or nice. Can't say which."
"You ever seen Sander?" I said.
"Okay, I get it! So you're not blind!" she chuckled.
"Nope! I just got good taste. And if you don't hurry
up and get me my itinerary, both our husbands just might
have something to worry about, Mrs. Murphy!"
"Johnnie, you do know how to woo. I'll give ya
that," she said, pulling a sealed packet out of a locked
cabinet. "Here! Now get outta here before I put you in an
"Oh, Stogie! Another time, in another place..."
"Get! Go!" she laughed. I turned around and made
for the door. "Wait! don't walk so fast. I'm recording me
some mind porn for later!" I gave myself a butt slap and
her a big wink.
"See ya soon, girl of my dreams!"
"Be safe, love! And next time you better really bring
me a pizza!"
A VERY FAST CAR was assigned to me for the first part of
the assignment. I was to drive, quick as safety and
avoidance of contact with local law enforcement would
allow, to an Air Force base in Germany. There, I was to
meet a specific contact who would provide an assignment
briefing. That's as far as I knew.
The car—an Audi A6—was parked farther down
the street, past the Amalienborg palace square. About a ten
minute walk from where I stood.
I headed for the colonnade, and as I crossed
underneath it I remembered the first "date" that Sander
and I had one summer evening that had brought us here.
He had a plan to play a practical joke on the
Queen's guard, and damned if we didn't actually pull it
off. By using the unique layout of the four palaces and the
square, he was able to throw his voice in a way that would
trick the guards into thinking that a sergeant had ordered
them to stop and salute the Queen. It had worked, and we
made a clean getaway.
I nodded at a pair of sentries as I passed by, and
saw the vehicle parked across the square. Lest you think
there's some secret CIA reason for the car being parked
this far from the office, the reason is nothing more than at
the time the car was delivered, this was the closest parking
space.
The key was in the envelope, along with the
driving instructions and contact info for the air base. And
ten minutes later, I was on the motorway headed for
Germany.
"GOOD MORNING, TORBEN, Sander offered, welcoming
his former friend and lover to the breakfast table. "It's
pancakes and boiled eggs today. And some baked ham
that Jannik made yesterday. Help yourself."
"Thanks. Did Johnnie get away okay?" Torben
asked. "I thought I heard a car this morning, but maybe I
was sleeping."
"Yeah, he's away. It was me you heard. I drove him
to the station, so now he's gone for a bit," Sander told him.
"He'll be back in a few days."
"Do you miss him when he goes?"
"I have to grow a new arm every time, because it's
like this one gets cut off from me every time he goes. I can't
stand it. None of us can," Sander replied.
"What's it like?" Torben wondered.
"Well, it's like you're a child who's lost at the fair, or
in a store. All you can think about is
when will you see
him. You don't care about anything except if he's okay, and
where he's at..."
"I didn't mean that. I mean, what's it like to be
loved; what's it like to love somebody else like that?"
Sander blew out a breath as he sat back in his chair,
his head lowered. Seconds passed and then his eyes met
Torben with both regret and resolve.
"Torben, there's one thing that I know. And that's
that you know what it's like to be loved. I was there. It's
something you've felt. As for the other, I can't answer for
you. But I can tell you that it feels better than being loved.
My love for Johnnie has no limit, and it gives me a feeling
that shows me just what life is for. If you've never felt that
before, well, I don't know what to say except that it's the
thing that I feel most sorry about for you," Sander said.
Torben knew, of course, that his friend was right on all
counts.
"I think I'm out of time for what could be in that
way, and you're right—I remember how you were to me.
But we were kids then, and I wondered if it's different is
all," Torben said. Sander just slowly shook his head.
"What I felt for you was true love, Torben. Yeah,
we would have grown into that love as more time passed,
I'm sure. That's what Johnnie and I have done. But the love
itself, even though it feels like it grows bigger, is still just
love. And that's what I felt for you."
"I know it. I really know it now."
Sander took the broom in the kitchen and walked
to the center of the room. Taking the broom by the bristles,
he tapped the tip of the broom handle against the ceiling.
Moments later came the boomp-boomp-boomp of Jannik's
reply.
"I'm his alarm clock," Sander chuckled. He stacked
some dishes in the sink for later, and pulled milk from the
refrigerator, a bowl and a spoon, and a jug of orange juice
and placed them on the table. "He's easy to make breakfast
for."
"You guys really watch out for each other. I
remember that from when we...I remember when he used
to follow us everywhere and I swear he thought you were
the end-all-be-all," Torben said.
"He still does. I'm here today because of that, and
he's my best friend," Sander said. "Do you talk with your
sister very much?"
"No. She's a school teacher in Greenland. I haven't
seen her in three or four years," Torben replied.
"Greenland! Wow! That's commitment."
"She has a guy over there and I have a niece I
haven't seen yet. Probably won't ever see her. But I've seen
her picture, and she's a cute little thing."
"Jannik is in the house!" came the cheerful
announcement from the cheeky boy. "I'm hungry!"
"It's on the table. You know what to do," Sander
said. "And then after there's your dishes, and their friends
waiting for you at the sink."
"Yeah, yeah..."
"Don't yeah, yeah me just because Johnnie's gone.
You do it because you love washing up the dishes because
it's just that much fun," Sander teased.
"Lucky for you I'm in a dishwashing mood. By the
way, how about a trip to the town later?" Jannik suggested.
"Could be fun."
"Only if you like Lego stores, Nike stores,
McDonald's, and the Gamer Café," Sander said.
"Maybe. Have to think about it," Jannik smiled.
"Okay, I thought about it. I'll do it if we have to."
"You okay here? Or do you need to go into town
too?" Sander asked Torben. Jannik's face fell a few
centimeters while waiting for his reply.
"I'm fine here. I'm tired, and I wanna go to bed!" he
joked. "But maybe you could pick up my meds if it's not
too much trouble..."
THE TRIP TO THE AIR BASE was quick and uneventful. I
pulled up to the gate an hour before I was expected, but
there were no hassles. A couple of MP's in a jeep led me to
an anteroom in an aircraft hangar, and I just chilled with
some snackage and some very tasty spring water awaiting
my one-to-one briefing.
Right on time the field coordinator arrived with a
thin vinyl packet of presumably orders, instructions, and
some cartography. Maybe this would be a quick in-and-
out mission as promised. Everything seemed casual
enough.
"Are you Rascal?" he began.
"The one and only," I answered.
"Your ADC?" he asked.
"Papa Mike Juliet Juliet. And you?"
"Foxtrot Twenty. Your day is gonna be more jam-
packed than a Vegas hooker's, friend Rascal," he laughed.
"And it's no do-over's. You get it right, or you suffer the
shame," he said.
"How so?"
"You've got about a day and a half to figure out
how to get an asset and three civilians from the British
consulate in Rabat and back to jolly old England safe and
sound," he said.
"Damn! It really is Africa!"
"Come again?"
"My superior. She said I was going to Africa. It's
not my beat, and what do I know fuck all about Africa?
Damn!" I exclaimed. "This bites. What am I supposed to
do? I don't see any specific contacts here. Why can't they
just fly out of Casablanca, or even out of Algiers?" I asked.
"Because the DST is watching them like hawks, and
none of us wants to see them in Temara anytime soon,
least of all them," he replied.
Temara is a horrible place; a detention center in the
loosest sense. It's really a torture facility for the Moroccan
Directorate for the Surveillance of the Territory. The DST
has absolutely no oversight, and if you ever get caught in
their web, just kill yourself.
"So why aren't the Brits taking care of them? This
so looks like an MI-6 job; what's the deal?"
"They're in on it too. They're gonna provide the
smokescreen. We're doing a slight-of-hand job on 'em,
that's why we get one and only one chance. While the DST
is following the supposed SAS team and the MI-6 guys are
leading them south, you will get their people out in plain
sight. Only thing is, nothing commercial. The DST might
as well be the ticket agency there. Nothing goes in or out of
the place legit without them knowing about it," he
explained.
"Who's my U.K. liaison?" I asked.
"That would be me!" said the thin, chipper man
who walked into the room. "David Fouts-Rushbrook at
your service. You fellows ask, and the crown delivers—
within reason," he chuckled.
"David! This is Rascal. He's your man; I'll leave it
with you men. I've completed my role. Good luck!" said
Foxtrot Twenty. And with his adieu, he left the room as
quickly as he came.
"Rascal is it? You may address me as Fouts. All do
who are in the know. That little man is not in the know. I
always find him to be rather presumptuous and, for lack of
a more politically correct description, a tad bothersome.
But enough about
that. What are your ideas to extract our
friends from that ghastly country?"
"Can I have a yellow pad, a ruler and some pens,
and about an hour?" I asked.
"I should say so. Back in a flash, young man! Oh,
this all sounds very exciting!"
Part Three
Chapter 22
wo steps forward and three steps back. That's how
Sander felt these days. He'd found his soul mate in
T Johnnie, and was definitely looking ahead toward a
lifelong future with him. His relationship with the
American guy was turning out to be everything he had
ever dreamed of as a young, gay man. He'd imagined that
it wasn't possible, based on the many gay stereotypes he'd
been led to believe existed ever since he first knew in his
heart that he loved men.
According to conventional wisdom, gays seldom
sought anything resembling a long term love relationship.
In Gay World, if a guy went to bed with you more than
three times, it was considered to be serious.
Conventional wisdom also said that young queers
never settled down so early. To commit to anyone at either
his or Johnnie's age was as rare as Halley's Comet. So,
loving and being engaged to Johnnie was definitely the
Two Steps Forward part of the equation. It was those
fucking Three Steps Back that irked him so.
A brother who'd been so mind-fucked by his
harrowing experience in Russia; his ex boyfriend who was
responsible for him nearly taking his own life, now couch
surfing in the very home that he and Johnnie were creating
together; his own self doubts that perhaps he might not be
good enough for Johnnie, and that maybe it's all
happening too soon, and too easy.
And what did he have to contribute, anyway? He
was an ace auto mechanic, sure, and would be graduating
from the most prestigious auto engineering and mechanics
academy in all of Denmark within weeks of the wedding.
But he wasn't sure if he really wanted a tradesman's life.
What he wanted to do was ridiculous, he thought.
It wouldn't be fair to Johnnie to even try for it. He owed it
to his impending marriage to bring in half of the income,
and his passion wouldn't pay. I may as well say I want to be a
rock star, it makes that much sense, he reasoned.
Trouble is, he knew that Johnnie would back him
up a hundred percent, and he was torn by the
responsibility of doing the right thing, against his dreams