Christmas Market Sweets

Maybe it was how free the young waiter was with the boisterous crowd on Saturday afternoon in the Rothenburg, Germany, bierstübe—beerhall—with him touching the men and them touching him and patting his biceps, chest, and bottom as he passed, swinging up to six full beer steins in his hands without losing a drop of lager. The array of steins looked almost as big as he did in his short-legged leather lederhosen despite it being in the middle of December. He looked too young for me not to be interested in him, and I was—not least because he looked young. I guess his name was Kurt. That’s what the men he was serving beer to called him, and they seemed to be quite familiar with him. He smiled at me as he passed where I sat at a long table, everyone around me being with someone else—except for me. He turned and smiled at me again. I grinned back and raised my nearly empty stein.

I wondered if Hans Weissman knew this was a predominantly gay men’s beerhall. I might have guessed that from the name—Herrlichkeit Halle, Glory Hall, a play on Glory Hole, I supposed. I could see that by the way the patrons, nearly all men, were responding to each other—and to the handsome young men serving up flirting along with the beer, including the very young Kurt, who was dancing around, looking delicious, with a big smile on his face.

I had found myself in this historic German town a little over a week before Christmas because Hans Weissman kept a very low profile, as did I both in my business and in my fetish for young men—older teens—in transition to full manhood. My preference was for blond, blue-eyed, perfectly formed eighteen or nineteen-year-old youths on the cusp of developing into experienced adults. There weren’t too many places I could pursue that fetish. Interestingly enough, Germany was one of those places, and I made frequent visits to Hamburg, where I had connections. I was in Rothenburg just before Christmas on business, though, and not with an intent to pursue my fetish. Not that I wouldn’t want young men; I just wasn’t insistent on age on this trip, which was to be a quick one wedged in during the holidays to bolster my sales figures for the year.

Weissman’s business was supplying premium liquor at an under-the-counter price. The business of the company I was working for was smuggling that liquor into him in Germany. Sometimes my company had “liberated” it from the distillery, which accommodated the low prices we offered it for. I had arrived here on Friday afternoon to negotiate the next year’s supply schedule and prices, knowing I wouldn’t be done with that until Monday. He had invited me to dinner at his house on Sunday and had left me to my own devices today. He’d recommended a beerhall to go to, though, that was on Georgengasse Street, near both St. Jacob’s church and my hotel, the Hotel Eisenhut, all of which were inside the ancient walls of the city. Rothenburg was one of the few towns in German that had retained its city walls intact and hadn’t sustained much damage over the centuries to its ancient buildings, which made it a major tourist destination.

As I walked down that street, I got that this was the gay district of the town, such as the town had, which didn’t appear to be much. I couldn’t have been happier with the recommendation.

Apparently having taken that I wanted more beer when I had raised my stein to him, when I was actually saluting a handsome youth, Kurt passed me one of the steins of beer he was carrying when he next wafted by and leaned down and asked, with a fetching smile, “Englisch?”

“No. Nein. I’m an American. Ein Amerikaner.”

“Noch besser—Even better,” he said, with a grin, following that up by pointing to himself and saying, “Kurt.”

I answered, “Aiden,” whereupon he waltzed off to deliver his other steins.

I was smitten and followed him around the room with my eyes. I noted that he occasionally was looking back at me. And then I lost sight of him. It had been a brief moment of arousal, as I often had with handsome young men. The encounters rarely led anywhere, and he was at work. I decided to leave and find some place for dinner before roaming around the area a bit to see what I could pick up. I decided to go find a men’s room before I left the beerhall.

Entering the corridor on the back wall of the hall, through a beaded-curtain covered doorway, I saw them further down the dimly lit hall, some distance beyond the door into the men’s room. They weren’t exactly hiding. Some big bruiser had Kurt backed up against the corridor wall. The youth’s lederhosen and briefs were bunched on the wood floor under him and his near leg was raised and bent, hooked on the bruiser’s hip. Several euro bills of undetermined domination fluttered on the leather shorts, and I wondered what a fuck like this went for in Rothenburg.

The guy who had him against the wall was palming the wall on either side of Kurt’s shoulders and he had his face buried in Kurt’s throat on the side away from me. He was in sort of a crouch and jerking upward. Kurt’s body moved up with the jerks. It was clear the bruiser was thrusting up into the small blond with blue eyes, almost lifting the young man’s anchored foot off the floor with each thrust. Kurt went up on the ball of his foot and grimaced with each upward thrust. He turned his eyes toward me. He didn’t look like he was in distress, though, and I guessed that this was part of the service available in his beerhall, so I stood there and watched before going into the men’s room. While I watched, Kurt gave me a slight smile and extended his arm, palm down, motioning.

I took that to mean that Kurt wanted me to stay and watch. I did more than watch, though. I unzipped myself, released my hardening cock, and stroked it. I wanted the young man too, and I didn’t care if he knew that. He continued to smile at me. I heard a sound behind me, someone else entering the corridor, probably to use the men’s room, and I quickly folded my cock back in my fly, turned, and went into the bathroom and up to one of the urinals.

The young man who entered the men’s room must have paused to watch the fucking in the hall too, as it was a long minute before he arrived. In the meantime, I was waiting for my cock to go flaccid enough that it would pass piss. The thought of young Kurt being fucked just on the other side of the wall and down the corridor kept me hard, though.

The guy who came into the men’s room was young, probably no more than twenty-one. Germanic, blond, with blue eyes, good-looking, trim. We stood side by side at the urinals. He was looking down at my hard cock, smiling. He reached out and touched it and I let him. I was in heat from seeing Kurt being fucked, and I was hard. The youth looked at me and said, “Ja? Sie wollen es?—Yes? You want it? Willst du, dass ich mich um das sorge?—Do you want me to take care of that for you?” It occurred to me that this men’s room was a regular hook-up spot.

“Ja,” I growled, and when the young man went down on his knees, I turned toward him and let him take my shaft in his mouth and take care of it. He did a good job of it and, thinking of Kurt, I didn’t make him wait very long before he had.

When I came out of the men’s room, the hallway was deserted. Kurt and the big bruiser had finished their business and left. The young German who had given me a blow job slipped past me, gave me a smile, and murmured, “Hat Ihnen das gefallen? War das gut?”

With my limited German, I took that to be a question of whether I had enjoyed him. “Ja, das war sehr gut, danke. Du bist ein sexy Junge—Yes, that was very good, thank you. You are a sexy youth.”

He responded, “Du bist auch sexy. Und hing wie ein Stier.” I got that he complimented me on being sexy as well as hung like a bull. He was right about that. I was. He smiled at me again, lingering in the hall. I got what he was after and pulled out a fifty euro note and handed it to him. We hadn’t made a deal on the blow job, but he’d done well, and I’d needed it. So, we parted with smiles. I was in the holiday spirit. Now that I thought about it, maybe he was younger than twenty-one. I could think of him as being younger. I wanted to think of him as being nineteen.

I didn’t leave the beerhall. I went back to where I had been sitting, which was still vacant. It wasn’t more than ten minutes before Kurt was there, back in his lederhosen, and with two steins of beer. He put one down in front of me and sat cross-wise on the bench seat beside me and took a swig out of the other stein before setting it on the table.

“American, did you say?” he asked in pretty good English. “Du lebst nicht hier, oder? Ein Tourist? Excuse me. I speak English with you, I think. But my English is not too good. I said I didn’t think you lived here. Are you a tourist?”

“Your English is fine,” I answered. “I’m here on business. Just through Monday. Should you be sitting here with me, drinking beer?” I wasn’t worried about that putting him off; it was just conversation. He’d wanted me to watch him being fucked in the hallway and he’d come to me afterward. We had a deal going here, if I was interested, and obviously he could do his business in the beerhall on work time.

“I served my last beer for the afternoon—to you. I am free now to do what I like. You knew what kind of beerhall this was when you came in?”

“It was recommended to me, but, yes, I saw what kind of place it was when I came in.”

“And you stayed?”

“Yes, I stayed.”

“You like to fuck men? You will pay to fuck men? Americans have money for such things, I know. I think you are a handsome man, though, so maybe you don’t have to pay often. And you have a very big cock. You showed it to me. I like men who are Pferd gehängt—how do you say it in English? Horse hung?”

“Yes, horse hung,” I said, amused by how direct he was. Pferd gehängt. I’d have to try to remember that phrase. It sounded exactly like what it meant.

“Maybe you don’t need to pay men to take your cock?”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Zwei und Zwanzig—twenty-two,” he answered.

I snorted. “How old again? No, I don’t like to fuck men. I like to fuck youths—older teens ready to become men. Twenty-two is a man, not fresh or interesting. How old again are you?”

“Neunzehn—nineteen,” he answered, giving me another saucy smile.

I chose to believe him. I wanted to believe he was nineteen. “The perfect age. And, yes, I sometimes pay for it. For a youth that age, yes.”

He took a drag on his beer stein and smiled at me over the rim. The discussion obviously was going well for him. It was going just fine for me too. There wasn’t any “yes I do or no I don’t” teasing. The basic agreement was there already. “Was there something you wanted to see in Rothenburg today? It’s Christmas time in Rothenburg—a magical time to be here.”

“If I wasn’t going to find something better to do, I was planning to try to find the Christmas market. I heard that Rothenburg has one and that it’s a particularly nice one. I don’t know where It is, though. Perhaps you can tell me where to go to find it.”

“You’re practically standing in it,” he said, with a little laugh. “It is very near, at the Grüner Markt. But it will not start up again until after dark, and the streets here are narrow and winding and can be confusing. You might not be able to find it on your own. You would have to go to it later, after your dinner, and you would do better to find a guide who know the town.” He gave me a provocative look. “Are you staying at a hotel?”

“Yes, I have a room at the Hotel Eisenhut.”

“Ah, not far. There is an easy pathway from there to the Grüner Markt. I could put you on the path for that and guide you through the market. Maybe you would want dinner before that. I could take you somewhere. You could buy me dinner too and then I could take you to the Christmas market. Are you looking for something special in the market?”

“I’m going to dinner tomorrow night at the house of the man I’m doing business here with,” I answered, my voice amused at how he was taking charge and surging ahead. I liked where this was going, though. “I should get a gift to take to his family.”

“A bottle of whiskey would be good,” he said, “but they don’t sell that in the Christmas market. I could take you someplace where they sell it cheap, special price but very good quality.”

“I don’t think that’s quite what I had in mind,” I said, with a laugh. Like carrying coals to Newcastle, I thought. The youth would probably be taking me to one of Hans Weissman’s hidden shops and selling me back product I’d had smuggled into the country myself and that Weissman could commandeer for his use anytime he wanted.

“Ah, something German, special to the holidays and the Christmas markets but not . . . touristy?”

“Yes,”

“I know just the thing. We have a cookie called Schneeball—Snow Ball—strips of sweet dough fried and covered with powdered sugar or chocolate, made specially for Christmas and sold in the Christmas markets. I bet your host’s family would love those. They are favorites of mine. They are expensive. But if you want to Beeindrucken—what you say, impress, your host’s family . . .”

“And you could be sweet too and show me where to buy these cookies in the Christmas market?”

“Sicher, ja—Certainly, yes. And then after we go to the Christmas market, if you like, we could go back to your hotel and you could fuck me. I could be very sweet for you, if you like.”

I was taking a drink of my beer when he said that and gagged a bit on it. He laughed. I wondered if he’d waited until I was drinking to drop that bombshell on me. If so, he’d be fun to play with—and to subdue.

“You do want to fuck me, don’t you?” he said with a straight face, but barely hiding his amusement that he had surprised me. “Our word for that is ‘Ficken’. I like the sound of that. It’s like what we do with our hands to show being fucked.” He’d made a sheath of the fingers of one hand and he was moving the middle finger of the other hand vigorously in an out of the sheath. Embarrassed, but laughing, I looked around to see if anyone was watching and would know we were negotiating me fucking the youth, but everyone else was busy trying to make someone else.

“Ja, Kurt, ich will dich ficken—Yes, I want to fuck you, Kurt,” I answered. I most certainly wanted to fuck the young man; I’d gone hard again just having him here beside me and so openly talking about it. I saw no reason to beat around the bush on the issue. He certainly wasn’t. And he’d seen me watching him be fucked in the corridor to the men’s room. He took cock. There wasn’t anything to question here.

“So, you speak some German.”

“Ein bisschen—a bit,” I said. I didn’t want to let him know that I used that sentence frequently on my trips to Hamburg. “Ich ficke gerne neunzehnjährige Jungs—I like to fuck nineteen-year-old youths,” I added, just to pin it down.

He laughed again, a tinkly, carefree laugh. He was driving me crazy. “300 euros or $300 U.S.”

“Why would you accept American dollars?” I asked. “Euros are worth more.” I wasn’t going to haggle. I’d paid more in Hamburg. I’d pay Kurt in any currency I had on hand. I would pay a lot more to put this delightful young man under me and to hear him pant and sob. I was hung and I could see that he had slim hips. Youths his age and shape suffered under me. I’m sorry to say that was part of the arousal for me in fucking a nineteen-year-olds, but it is, and the opportunity doesn’t come to me that often. I have to go overseas to be comfortable getting it. The age of consent in Germany was fourteen, so I wasn’t anywhere close to the edge of legality when I came here to satisfy my fetish.

“American dollars are worth more on the black market. They are accepted in more places than euros are.”

Smart man, I thought. He knew his marketplace. “Then we have a deal. U.S. dollars it is—or will be. Shall we go?”

“To dinner? You pay?”

“Ja.”

“To the Christmas market for Schneeball cookies?”

“Ja.”

“And to your hotel, where you will ‘Fricken’ me for $300.”

“Ganz sicher ja—Most certainly yes,” I said.

* * * *

“Mein Gott, du bist gross!—My god, you’re big!” Kurt cried out. He was kneeling at the foot of my hotel room bed, facing the headboard. I was holding him close into my chest, one hand cupping his jaw, holding his head into the hollow of my shoulder and stroking his cock with my other hand.

I laughed. “I haven’t even put it in you yet.” And I hadn’t. I did have my shaft between his buttocks cheeks, though, running the underside of it up and down his hole.

“Tu es! Setzen Sie es in mich!—Do it! Put it in me. Fuck me! I had no idea you’d be such an expert at this.”

“All in good time, my lad. I want you to come for me first. Do you understand? Ejakulieren. Ejakulieren für mich. Komm für mich.”

“Ja, ich verstehe.—Yes, I understand. Setzen Sie es in mich. Ficken mich. Mach mich ejakulieren—Put it in me. Fuck me. Make me come.” He was panting and begging me to get on with it, but it wasn’t my way. I wanted to work him. I needed to work his tender skin, flexible, nubile, milky-white, not-quite-man’s body to maximize my arousal before I tore more of his youthful innocence out of him. This was my fetish time. This was what I was paying $300 to enjoy. This wasn’t just a quick fuck.

I pushed him down on his belly on the bed and hovered over him, twisting his body this way and that, gliding my hands and tongue over him, finding curves and creases, crevices and orifices to explore and fondle and lick. He moved under my guiding hands, panting and moaning, not fighting me, letting me have my way with him. I pushed my face between his buttocks cheeks, and he moaned and writhed as I opened him up with my tongue and lips and teeth while prodding and pinching his nipples, distending and rolling and squeezing his ball sac, and stroking his cock.

There wasn’t a square inch of his delicious little blond, blue-eyed, smooth, pliable body that I didn’t fully know with my hands and my mouth before I mounted and fucked him. And the first orifice of his that knew my shaft was his mouth. He gagged and groaned as I slid it into his mouth and massaged his throat with a hand to encourage him to take it deep. I took my time with him.

I had let him use the hotel room bathroom and to shower first, with him assuring me that he knew how to prepare for sex. He said more than once that he knew what to do with a man in sex, but before I was finished with him, it was clear that no man had taken him as fully in the past as I did in that hotel room in Rothenburg on the Saturday evening.

When I came out of the bathroom after showering and collecting the lubricant and slitting the condom packets I estimated that I would use before I let him go, he was posed provocatively on the bed, naked. I moved toward him and he lifted a hand and said, “We agreed on $300 U.S.” He said it like perhaps I didn’t know how big a sum it was. I just smiled, because I had a good idea what he would be doing to earn that much.

I just reached over and took six fifty-dollar bills off the dresser and said, “Where do you want me to put it? You don’t have any pockets on you at the moment.” I had gotten the money out of the hotel safe in the room while he was in the bathroom, not wanting him to see where the safe was. I could have—and would have—given him more for what I was going to do with him, a handsome, blond, blue-eyed nineteen-year-old youth. I could have paid him in euros too. I would pay a lot more to get my cock in a young man like him.

“My jeans’ pocket, bitte—please,” he said. He’d changed out of his lederhosen, obviously a traditional costume for the waiters to wear at the beerhall, before we’d gone to dinner and the Christmas market. “Dann kommen Sie zu mir auf das Bett—Then come to me on the bed.”

I walked over and slapped him across the face. I didn’t slap him hard—just enough to shock him and get his attention—but it surprised him enough that his head snapped to the side, he fell back onto the bed, his hand went to his cheek, and he looked at me in fear and confusion.

“Ich habe für diesen Fick bezahlt—I have paid for this fuck,” I said. “This is the last time before I let you leave this room that you give me any command. I command now. All I want to hear from you other than panting, moaning, and sobs is ‘Yes, Master—Ja, Meister.” Do you understand? Verstehen Sie?

“Ja,” Kurt responded in a whimper.

“Say it. What I told you to say.”

“Ja, Meister, Ich verstehe,” the youth answered in a subdued voice. He was beginning to understand why I was paying him $300 for the service. He was trembling. The look he gave me and how he was flicking his tongue out and licking his lips told me that the domination was arousing to him. He was trembling as much in anticipation of the pleasure of the vulnerable captive as in fear of what was to come.

“Gute. Dann beginnen wir—Good, then we begin.” I grabbed his ankles, pulled him to me, covered his body with mine, and devoured every nook and cranny of the beautiful, pliable small body.

When he came was when he was kneeling at the foot of the bed, I was standing behind him, holding his head into the hollow of my shoulder with a hand cupping his jaw; rubbing the underside of my hard cock across his hole; and stroking his cock with my other hand. When he had arced the last spouting of his cum onto the bedspread, I released him, and, panting and moaning, he fell to the bed in front of me.

“Now I fuck you,” I said. “Now it’s my turn.”

“Ja, bitte. Yes, please. Put it in me.”

“I’m going to bind you. I enjoy it more when the youth is completely under my control.”

He started to object, twisting around and starting to sit up. I slapped him across the face again and he fell back on the bed, whimpering. “What did I tell you were supposed to say every time I told you what I was going to do with you?”

“Ja, Meister,” he murmured.

“Damn right,” I said. “If you don’t want to be bound, get up and dress, and walk out right now.”

There was no pause to ponder. He lifted his arms toward me, the wrists held together.

I had restraints in my luggage. I bound his wrists together with one restraint pair and his ankles together with the other. I placed him on his side, butt at the bottom edge of the bed. He was lying on his left hip, and I bent his closed legs to run along the foot of the bed to my right. He was totally incapacitated, panting and whimpering. He had no choice but to accept the ball gag when I popped it into his mouth and tied it off. I held his head down with one hand gripping his throat and I pressed down on right hip with the other hand. His arms were extended in front of him, tied together at the wrist.

I stroked his hip and waist a few times, first with a hand and then with my cock, delighted in how slim his hips were as I rubbed my thick, long, hard cock on his tender skin. He moaned his anticipation. I took my time penetrating his tight channel with the shaft, enjoying his deep moaning and attempts, at first, to writhe. I didn’t let him do that, though, I held him fast as I was stuffing myself inside him. He was an experienced little whore, though. Once I was all in and started pumping, he took me like a champ.

After pumping him for a while, I changed positions, putting him on his knees, chest to the surface of the bed, wrists and ankles still bound together, and I mounted him from behind and on top and rode him to my first sheathed ejaculation.

I cuddled him in my arms then, on the bed, while we both cooled down. When he had stopped trembling, I freed him of his gag and the restraints.

“I think my $300 is good for another fuck,” I said.

He started to say something and I gripped his body tightly and he thought better of whatever he might have said and said, “Ja, Meister,” instead.

“If you want to leave now, I’ll take back $100 and I’ll let you dress and leave.”

He didn’t leave.

I fucked him again, this time in a missionary, holding him lovingly in my arms, fully possessing him, him moaning and whispering “Ja, ja, ja” in my embrace while I fucked him slowly, thickly, deep.

After I’d ejaculated, I went to the bathroom. When I came back into the hotel room, Kurt had dressed and left. I laughed. He’d put one over on me. I had been contemplating continuing the ravishment because he was such a delectable piece and I wasn’t often able to fully enjoy a yielding nineteen-year-old youth. He’d acted like he was too spent to move a muscle when I’d finally allowed myself to come and had pulled out of him and gone to the bathroom. He’d just been waiting for his chance to leave.

Oh, well, I thought. He had fully earned the $300. I would have tipped him over what I’d already given him. Maybe I’d find him again tomorrow. I wondered how much fetish sex he would take for $500.

* * * *

I went to church Sunday morning at St. Jacob’s church, which was just one street over from my hotel. I didn’t do so because I was religious, although the pomp and circumstance of the church service was interesting and I salivating over the older youths in the boys choir, but because Kurt told me that plaza outside the church was a hookup spot on the weekends for rent-boys. I had hopes of running into Kurt there and getting another round with him.

I wandered around the square for a good twenty minutes after coming out of the service. I didn’t see Kurt, but several young men were loitering about who obviously were for sale. Some of them seemed the right age for my interest and a few of those were making eye contact and had me getting harder. I was narrowing my interest down to a couple of them when I felt a touch on my arm, turned, and smiled. The young man who had given me the blow job in the beerhall the previous afternoon was there, smiling, apparently available, and looking good.

“Erinnern Sie sich? Bei Allemanner gestern?—Remember me? At the bierstübe yesterday?”

“Ja. Soft mouth. Beautiful youth—Weicher Mund. Schöner Junge. Do you speak English? My German isn’t too good.”

“Gut Genug. Good enough for me to understand what I think you want,” the young man said. “Is there something you want from me?”

“I’ll pay $200 U.S. or the same in euros.”

“For what?”

“For whatever I want.”

“I would want the American dollars.”

Did they all understand how the black market worked, I wondered. “How old are you?”

“Zwanzig. Aber ich weiss, wie man einen Mann zufriedenstellt. Excuse me, I must try to speak English. Twenty, sir. I have experience; I know how to please a man.”

“I already know you do in one way. I would like to know what other ways you can please me.”

“Do you have a room?” he asked, holding out his hand to take the four fifty-dollar bills I already was pulling out of my wallet.

He was lying, panting and moaning softly on the bed, naked, and completely open to me when I pulled away and went to my luggage for the restraints. I had worked his beautiful smooth and pliable body with my hands and mouth for nearly a half hour and I thought he was putty in my hand. I had his pelvis raised on a pillow and his thighs spread, his legs turned out. His hole was gaping from the combined attention of my mouth and my fingers. I’d had my hand inside him up to the knuckles and he’d taken it despite the slimness of his hips. He would take my cock with little trouble. My mind was mulling how to restrain him while leaving him as vulnerable to approach as he now was.

But when I came back with the restraints, he murmured. “Nein. Nicht. Not that, bitte,” and started to struggle to get up.

I didn’t have long that day. I was expected at the Weissmans’ for dinner in the late afternoon. I knew if I had the youth for the evening or night I could seduce him into letting me bind and gag him and have my way with him totally, but I didn’t want to force him and I was in high heat and throbbing. So, I just threw the restraints aside, said, “Fine, we won’t use them,” gathered him up into my arms, worked my cock inside him as he huffed and writhed under me, and fucked the shit out of him.

I had my satisfaction, but took it quickly and then had plenty of time to shower and dress and to find Hirtengasse, near a corner of the old city wall, in the old city by the time I was expected for dinner. I had the box of Schneeball cookies, all wrapped nicely in Christmas wrapping, to hand to Hans Weissman, the liquor distributor I was dickering with, when he opened the door to his large, old ochre-stucco duplex with a red-tile roof.

“How nice, Aiden,” Hans said. “These are very special cookies for this season. How did you know about them?”

“I found them in the Christmas market. I went there last night.”

“These cookies are my son’s favorites. Here. Here he is now. Aiden, this is my son, Kurt.”

I turned, and there he was. Kurt. My Kurt from the previous day. An almost grinning nineteen-year-old Kurt.

Oh, shit.

“This is Mr. Anderson, Kurt,” Hans said. “He’s here to help with the supplies for my business. Look what he’s brought us—your favorite Christmas cookies.”

“How very kind of him,” Kurt said, his voice matching the twinkle in his eyes.

Somehow I made it through the evening. The whole family was charming, Kurt the most merry of the lot.

At the door, when I left, it was dark out and had begun to snow.

“Oh, my, do you think you can find your way back to your hotel in this muck?” Hans asked.

“I’m sure I can,” I answered. I couldn’t get away fast enough. I had been afraid all evening that Kurt would say something to damn me and bring his family’s wrath down on my head. At the same time, just being near the young man during the evening had me erect and breathing hard.

“I’m not so sure you can. Kurt, will you come to the foyer, please.”

And there he was, smiling at me.

“Kurt, could you guide Mr. Anderson back to his hotel? It’s the Hotel Eisenhut in Herrn Alley.”

“I don’t think that would be necessary,” I said, almost stuttering it. I had slapped and bound and fucked the youth. I’d do it again if I had the opportunity, but I was on such dangerous ground here. One word from the young man and . . .

“I’d be delighted to, Vater,” Kurt said. “And I will go on from there to a party, if that’s all right with you.”

“Perfectly fine with me,” Hans said, as he sent the young man and me out into the night.

We had gone no more than sixty feet when Kurt laughed, turned to me, and said, “Do you want to spend another $300?”

“Of course I do,” I answered. “But you are in a position to ask for much more, you know.”

“Why should I get more for what I enjoyed at that price?” Kurt asked.

We walked for a while before I put it all together. “Your father knows I fucked you yesterday, doesn’t he? He’s the one who directed me to the beerhall where we met. He knew we’d meet, didn’t he?”

“He is thinking that perhaps he will get a very good deal on the liquor supplies when you two meet in his office tomorrow.”

“I suppose he will,” I said. “But will he object if you don’t return home until tomorrow morning and you are babbling incoherently?”

“I’m sure he’ll consider that the price to pay for dealing on the black market,” Kurt answered.

As would I consider in determining how much of a discount I could get away with giving Weissman, in exchange for being able to use the delicious young man when I came to Rothenburg. “And you, Kurt. What about you?”

“I’m sure I will be fully satisfied, just as I was last night.”