Diary of a Cheater

I moved to London in my early twenties. It was simultaneously the best and worst thing I’ve ever done. I moved there with the love of my life and boyfriend of several years. If he knew about some of the events that unfolded during our time there, it’s unlikely we’d still be together now. These events are true, but some specifics and names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

I hope no one is reading this, but if you are, please don’t tell my boyfriend.

As I waited for the train at Canada Water station, my heart was pounding, and sweat beads were forming on my forehead. Dust and diesel fumes permeated my nose and lungs. What the fuck was I thinking. I had managed to skip the university stage and landed a good corporate career pretty much straight from school, following a few years of work experience. I was 23 (going on 40), and yet here I was waiting on a train to Goldsmiths University for a meeting about a trip to China with a bunch of students I had never met before. What the fuck was I doing. I boarded the train and stumbled to a seat, heartburn and anxiety in my throat. I checked my watch. 10:51 AM; I was going to be late for the 11 AM meeting. Fuck. I slipped my headphones in and tried to calm my mind by focussing on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2.

I disembarked at New Gross Gate and headed through town towards the university. It was already 11, and it would take me about 10 minutes to get there… if I knew where I was going. Eventually, I found my way to the reception of the Confucius Institute at the university. It took me longer than it should have, considering I had sat several Mandarin exams here already. Jeez, I have no sense of direction. “Ohhhh, handsome boy”, the receptionist whispered to her colleague in Mandarin as I walked through the open door of what looked like a cottage and entered a narrow hallway, perhaps assuming I couldn’t understand or was out of earshot. “Hello, I’m here for the meeting about the China trip”, I said as I approached the small desk at the end of the hallway beside an even narrower staircase. “Yes, yes, upstairs. First door on left”. I headed up the stairs and entered the room of a dozen students and two of the Chinese lecturers. They were all sitting around a U-shaped table facing a whiteboard, which appeared to have a brief itinerary of the two-week trip scribbled in English and hanzi. I scanned the room. Six girls, all of them slim and pretty. Six guys, all of them… not handsome. Except one. He looked about 6'2, with olive skin and jet black hair, slim but toned. Spanish or Italian, I guessed.

I took up the only empty seat left, right at the door, next to one of the lecturers. She was going over preparations for the trip and explaining how to get a tourism visa; by making an appointment at the Chinese Embassy in London (near my office by good fortune!) and paying a ‘small’ £140 fee. “You must be Chris; we won’t do introductions again since you were late and we don’t have much time. Some people have exams this week. Hopefully, you can read the name tags I’ve set out,” the lecturer turned to me and said. Her name tag read ‘Effie’. There was only one other name tag I was interested in right now. “Leo”. From his name tag, I looked down towards his legs under the table, arrogantly spread wide. He wore skin-tight light blue jeans and white converse that contained the biggest feet in the room. Size 12 at least. I looked back up his legs to the table where his large hands were spread out on the surface, shoulder-width apart, and up along his toned and tanned arms, to his neck - where his pronounced Adams-apple made me want to taste his skin - to his chiselled jaw line, to his beautiful lips and then to his deep olive eyes… which were looking right at me, and surely, just surely, fucking caught me checking him out. Fuck. He looked pissed.

He looked from me to the lecturer next to me, “now that we’re all here, at last, can someone just give me a straight answer about how long the visa will take!”. The lecturer seemed flustered by his gaze, “maybe not long, maybe long”, she replied timidly. Leo rolled his eyes, slid one of his big hands off the table, and placed it over his crotch, “what is ‘long’?!”. I had a pretty good idea of what was long, and it was between Leo’s legs under his left hand. Despite my initial attraction, Leo proceeded to piss me off for the rest of the meeting by asking stupid questions (yes, there is such a thing) and generally being loud and obnoxious.

A few months later and I’m on a Lufthansa flight to Beijing. The journey was uneventful except for two things. I was amused at the signs for “aliens” in Beijing Capital International Airport. And I was also amused by the taxi driver that tried to rip me off on the journey from the airport to the hotel. First off, he tried to agree on a price in advance. I had read about arguments with taxi drivers who wanted to agree to a high fixed price instead of using the meter, so I asked in mandarin, “Use meter, thanks. I don’t want to agree price in advance”. No argument. I later learned that the other students on the trip who couldn’t speak good Mandarin paid twice as much as those who could. I was first to arrive at the hotel reception; the other students arrived over the next couple of hours.
“Ok! It looks like we’re all here, welcome to China!” Effie said enthusiastically and clapped her hands. The group followed her cheer in applause. “Alright, I’m sure everyone tired after travel, so let’s go through roommate arrangements”. Wait. Did she just say ‘roommate arrangements?’. I’m not in the same boat as these students; I can more than afford my own room. “We’re sharing rooms?” I ask. “Yes, Chris, the hotel only have so many rooms left and it will be good for studies if we pair up rooms. Don’t worry - you have good roommate.” We are first on the list. “Leo and Chris, you share 3A, here is key”. Leo slaps my ass; his big hand feels like it definitely left a mark, “let’s go roomie!”. He grabs my bag and makes towards the elevator. The room has two single beds and a bathroom that runs the length of the room… with a glass wall; there’s a shower curtain, but it doesn’t quite fit the whole length of the bathroom.

Leo strips down to his underwear, “I’m gonna take a shower. I’m fucking sweaty after 11 hours of travel” he says. He closes the glass door behind him and pulls the shower curtain over. Damn. All I can see are his giant feet below the shower curtain as he turns on the water. He left his t-shirt crumpled up on his bed. I reach for it and pick it up, bringing it to my face, so I can smell his sweat. Fuck. He smells so good. I feel my dick hardening in my shorts as I breathe in his scent while he showers less than a couple of meters from my bed. I spot his trainers under the small writing desk by the window. I put the t-shirt down and kneel on the floor by the desk, picking up one of his trainers. I check the size label, 13 UK, 14 US. Fuck. My 7-inch uncut dick is rock solid now, Leo’s scent on my face from his t-shirt. I reach into my shorts and slide my hand up and down my shaft, bringing his sweaty trainer to my face. I take a deep breath through my nose, smelling his big sweaty feet as I jack my throbbing dick. I stick my tongue out to lick the fabric of his trainer and taste his foot sweat just as I hear the shower stop. Fuck. I quickly put his shoe back. I lunge for my bed, hiding my raging boner by placing a pillow on my stomach. “All yours, bro!” He announces as he comes into the room, towel around his waist. I want to lick the tops of his feet, up his legs, past his crotch, dragging my tongue over his abs, and then back down to his huge bulge. I pretend to look at something on my phone, “oh, yeah, cool, thanks man”.
This went on for a week, both of us assuming the other was straight but growing closer and closer every day. We’d get up at 6 am and hit the outdoor gym at Tsing Hua University campus together every morning, spotting each other. And then we’d jog back to the hotel, and he’d (probably) jack off in the shower while I jacked off to his sweaty gym gear.

We were out drinking the night before we were due to head to Shanghai for the second week of our trip when the lecturer confirmed the room arrangements would be the same at the Shanghai hotel. For whatever reason, I started to feel bad about what I’d been doing while my roomie was in the shower. So I decided to come clean. Well, kind of. I decided to tell him I was gay so that he had the opportunity to switch roommates for the second week if he wasn’t comfortable sharing with me anymore. “What the fuck?! Seriously?!” Leo said while we were walking around Beijing together. It was dark, but the area we were in was well-lit with skyscrapers and car lights. “Me fucking too, man! I’ve been with my boyfriend, Andrew, for about eight years”. I couldn’t believe it. This arrogant, confident alpha male I’d been rooming with and lusting over for a week was also gay. I’d never cheated and loved my boyfriend at home, but I couldn’t help but imagine what might happen in Shanghai…