Graduate Studies

"Jesus!!", said Diego, our favorite bartender. He could see behind me and I could see in the mirror behind the bar, after he alerted me, to Phil's approach . "What have you done to yourself?" Or, as I studied the approaching image, who had he had do that to him? In our college days when we were managing the water polo team his current haircut wouldn't have caused mention save from the coach who would have sneered and said that he had too much hair. But that was some time back and now, as a partner in a respectable, conservative law firm one could wonder how receptive they might be to his representing and meeting clients in a conservative suit, wing tips, power tie, white button down shirt and a shadow Mohawk on his head? I tried to imagine the reaction of the clients and couldn't though I was certain there would be one. Diego, whatever his thoughts, was so stunned that he placed Phil's beer mug, fortunately empty, on the bar upside down.

"Don't do that to the bottle", Phil said and turned to me as he slid on to his usual stool, "How are things in the bean counting business? Anything new?" And significantly rubbed his head. My eyes must have looked like a pair of brown olives floating in over-cooked egg whites and I was fighting to find something, anything to say. In a discreet display of male bonding/fondling he reached up and gave my head a rub while giving my balls a pat. "You should try something like this sometime." Mentally I attached a low stripe of hair to my shaved head and tried to imagine how it might look. I glanced at Diego who was, apparently, trying the same thing on me with the same lack of results.

In fairness, on an ongoing basis the length of my hair varied from absent to barely visible, more apparent as a tactile part then a "real" haircut with any obvious style or function. As proof that I had hair I'd once let it grow out but, as I did, kept it peeled so that the effect was of having Male Pattern Baldness. Many of the men at my office offered their sympathy and said they understood the ongoing shave job. The joke was on them. An ongoing problem I faced was to maintain my chrome dome it was almost necessary to take a late lunch and re-shave my head as it was, again, growing out revealing a thick stubble that was dark and certainly not afflicted with MPB. Another problem was that I was addicted to shaving-and having shaved- well, me. All parts of me. Guys at the gym may have felt their memories failing as over a span of time I had fur covered pecs that gradually gave way to a smooth chest that highlighted my, apparently (to them), enlarged nipples. The same applied to my crotch, my legs...it just depended on how I was feeling and how whoever was feeling me wanted it. The gym was also hypnotized by a pierced cock in which was there not only a large Prince Albert but a ladder of barbells down the underside. This might have led them to the assumption that I was gayer than a fruit stand at a farmer's market had not my frequent Racquetball partner-in both singles and doubles-been a well known, well respected and manifestly masculine coach at the university.

Coach B. and I had a somewhat extensive history. I'd met him at about the same time I'd met Phil when we discovered a joint interest in hard built hairy men who took it all off. Phil wangled us jobs as the managers of the Water Polo team and, only shortly after I'd first fucked Phil, (One of the lesser known, better uses to which one can put a best friend.) it was the coach who gave my my first full body shave.(And I'd given him a good sucking while he did it.) The balance of my college years I had a very busy social and athletic schedule in that it made sense to concurrently bunk in with Phil and enhance my relationship with the Coach. Indeed it might be thought that the two men were "friendly" rivals but only in the sense that occasionally feelings got hurt when one clippered me when the other wanted to. The Coach could be particularly petulant in that he took the entirely correct attitude that Phil had-as time strung out-not only the Captain of the Water Polo Team but the Goalie as well. (Nice young men with whom he never bothered to mention he'd played ball with members of both the golf and tennis squad. In a snide moment I'd suggested to him that he may be the only man on campus to letter in three sports without playing the games.) My fidelity was borne more of a certain casual disinterest beyond enjoying what I had: A live-in sex partner and a de facto lover with a lot of muscle (sorry, no pun intended) at the University. There were a myriad of opportunities-Phil was always bringing home strays for which he had no time but thought I might-but as I demanded fidelity from the Coach he got it from me. (Phil doesn't count.) To say it was a cozy arrangement for all concerned is to understate the, uh, state of affairs badly.(Sorry-I couldn't resist.) Only one thing changed after graduation; Phil found the members of the Water Polo Team went other places and I still had the Coach firmly in hand. For a number of obvious reasons it wasn't a good idea for him to keep recruiting from the team and, using the coach as a conduit was equally not possible. To some degree that was how, eventually, we ended up facing Diego with one Mohawk, one look of surprise-mine-and one flabbergasted barkeep;Diego who had drifted into a modified form of suspended animation.

"Give me the fucking bottle before your hand heats it up and sprays the whole place." With almost too much force the bottle was opened and on the bar. Phil picked it up and while concentrating on me-hoping for signs of life to reappear-emptied it into a mug that had the opening on the bottom. Beer splattered both of us, Diego and what was apparently some salesman from out of town.

"Shit." Who was going to disagree? "Let's go upstairs, clean up and change. I assume this one was on the house as well as me. I wonder if you can get yellow stain out of birds eye pique?"

And so the bean counter and the ambulance chaser squeegeed off with cocktail napkins as much as was possible and headed for the elevators. I was amused to notice that Phil had missed a spot and foamy, yellow ale was dripping from the bottom of his zipper. Given his temperament on the moment I didn't mention it. One of the conveniences of making your "local" the smallest of the bars in a large hotel is that the access to many things is possible. Sometime earlier we'd decided that it would be mutually beneficial if we kept a room(s) there for a variety of purposes the least of which was sleeping. (Okay, you'll win that point, when we were too drunk to go anywhere we slept. Sometimes even on or in the bed.) But the larger purpose was what we euphemistically called "client relations". This was even occasionally true. Indeed part of our swift rise in corporate America had as much to do with our abilities as our access abilities. Without seeming to be hustling it was known we had connections-that grew as time went on-to a surprising number of sins, deviations and Maitre'D's who could make us and our firms look good or feel good. As Diego would have been only too happy to affirm, on a deep background basis only, was that a bartender makes far more money from "good" clients than in tips or his paycheck and in Phil and me he'd hit the jackpot. One does not work in a bar in a major hotel in a big city without coming to certain knowledge over the years. Beyond his mixology skills Diego was a prime stud understatedly dressed in a traditional white mess jacket and a black bow tie. Though one had to lean over the bar slightly to see them-and we had-his very tight pants were a sight to behold. As the only full time employee in the saloon he not only mixed whatever was ordered but would take them to the six or eight tables in the faux walnut paneled room. Then he was clearly on view and for those interested, and many were, it was a revelatory vision. Who would have thought that one could cram that much male meat in something that wasn't spandex. Or, as Phil once commented, "He's the first guy I ever saw who wore a Speedo with long legs." Oh, and his name wasn't Diego. It was Saksubbaba-you can see why he changed it-and his only familiarity with anything even vaguely Latin were travel posters in the lobby advertising a sister hotel in Acapulco.

On point, "Diego" was a product of the educated slums of Istanbul. I have no idea at what point he'd picked up some sort of shoeshine kit and started working the tourist spots in one of the more interesting cities of the world. I am however certain of one of the first lessons he learned: That various visitors visit for various reasons, not all of which had to do with Byzantine Culture, Hagia Sofia or the bridge over the Bosporus. Indeed it took him precious little time to graduate from a street urchin to a towel boy in the rightly famous Hammams to a porter at a good hotel to a minor desk clerk at a better hotel to a concierge at a fine hotel. Service was truly his middle name. This pleasant circumstance might have gone on indefinitely save that in distant Ankara some religious fundamentalists who were members of Parliament began making noise about sins of which either they had no idea and were speculating or had a very clear idea and found it necessary to denounce if only so they could continue sinning themselves. (This is, I've found, a practice not limited to lawgivers in Turkey.) It was this bit of law that found "Diego" getting his head shaved, transferring his accumulated assets to the Dresdner bank in Frankfurt and appearing at the German Consulate seeking a visa as a "Gastarbeiter". These guest workers were the staff of German heavy industry and Turkey was the favored nation for applicants. Since he spoke German-working in a hotel had given him the impetus to learn many things including foreign languages-he was immediately accepted and, two days after that, was on a plane to Munich, arguably the most sophisticated city in Deutschland. (Berlin has supporters but until it's fully rebuilt, Munchen has the edge.) Nor, once there, did he bother with applying to BMW as a laborer to build cars or motorcycles. No, he strolled down the Maximillianstrasse and into the VierJahrezeiten to visit an old friend, one of the many concierges at this one of the two best hotels in the city. (He could have gone to the other-the Bayerischer Hof-but had closer ties to the V.J.) Immediately hired, his smile and his closely cropped head began a charm offensive on the guests that made Hitler's tour of Poland look benign. From the MarianPlatz to the Anglishergartens the newly named "Diego" became famous. Some might say notorious. German fleshpots differ only marginally from those in the former Constantinople and his acute ability to discern what might amuse the discerning was utilized from day one. The only modest problem was that eventually Steigenbarger Hotels, proprietors of the V.J. while not unappreciative of his many talents felt that their basic wealthy conservative clients weren't all as amused as was a certain more raffish element. Anyone behind the front desk could have disabused them of this idea but...they didn't. The hotel chain was also aware of his two years of excellent service and suggested that for an enterprising man the place to go was, where else?, the United States. And so carrying a hefty severance package, references that made "sterling" look like base metal and a first class (one way) ticket on Lufthansa he left for the new world with some old ideas.

But why a bartender in a commercial, if opulent, hotel? Opportunity knocks on many doors and not all of them the front one. After six months emploment at the theoretically staid Palmer House in Chicagoland he'd learned after several "Mr. Leatherman" contests and a tattoo convention that "staid" wasn't precisely what one might have thought. Also that working in the highly public lobby, while certainly profitable in many ways, could be eclipsed in a more private venue with a highly selective, appreciative wealthy clientele. Also the one winter he'd spent there seemed to him roughly akin to summiting Everest and he moved on to a more sun friendly sate. Which is where we met him. Of whom few were more appreciative of this skills and knowledge than Phil and myself. Initially, before we signed up as "permanent" transient guests of the place we had very little to teach him and we learned an epic amount. Over time things evened out at a very rapid pace as our professions-all of them-made possible to upgrade from a room to a junior suite and then to a full, one bedroom suite and finally to a penthouse suite. Our firms, impressed with our skills and our abilities to please our clients, found the suite useful for many purposes-indeed they without realizing it, both paid for it and we kept and split the money for the overage-and we became as close to being a Senior Partner as one could get before we were thirty. And what was our product that required a suite? We sold haircuts and shaves. Not such as one might have got in the elaborate shop in the basement, but haircuts-and shaves- none-the-less.

There was really too much business for either Phil or I, even with occasional assistance of Diego, to handle amost from the start so hiring outside talent was not only advisable, it was necesary. There came a time when our reputations could not have taken the hit of being known as "pimps" for visiting men who wished to meet other men for sports, games and keeping sharply barbered. That was no problem. Knowing the interests of others can be productive and useful. One day as I was giving my Coach a leisurely fuck I suggested to him that if he had any team members-of any team, he just had to know about them-who were interested in some well-paying part time work-they could schedule their own hours-I might have some ideas. For that, they could be former members of whom he and whoever had knowledge. And, I may have intimated, that for my favorite hair cutter and fucking friend there was the possibility of referral fees and even, beyond that, if he could send an illustrated sheet as to their qualifications, we'd find that helpful. I went so far as to say that, as this was business and nothing personal was involved, if he chose to shave them and test fly them as part of the interview process, he was welcome to do so. He couldn't have been more pleased if I'd made him the Athletic Director of the University.

Things start innocently we had found. A man, fresh from his local barber shop at home checks into a hotel. The bigger and more expensive-few motels or sales-men's hotels are really equipped to handle he more specific of their patron's request-the more easily can requests be gently made. Cash in the listener's hand can be helpful as well. That you can practically still smell the Bay Rum on him is of no consequence, he feels he needs a "shave and a bit of attention" and his question is where to find exactly what he wants. The hostelry business is very sensitive to the needs and wishes of their guests. As an accountant I don't have to like or be more than formally civil to some of our clients. They don't have to care for me either. It's the quality of the work that counts. Hotels have it very much the other way round. They care desperately what their clients want. Their happiness leads to repeat business, referrals, builds a solid reputation and enhances the bottom line. So approached about cutting and shaving the appropriate thing to do is to verify of what precisely is meant and then satisfy the request. Sort of the Corn/Hog cycle without corn and without hogs. Clearly one cannot stand behind a reception desk and blatantly ask what their particular pleasure might be and how best it can be served. That would not only be bad taste but embarrassing to the expectant guest who hasn't quite decided what he's expecting. They know by heart our suite number and by eyesight many of our employees however, it's just a trifle too blatant to hit the call button and whistle up a bell man when what's wanted is a man on call. No. But there's a pleasant alternative. All the clerk or the concierge or whoever need do is suggest that if they can just have a few moments to consider the matter...oh, and while they wait why not have a drink at the little bar off the lobby? Hand them a chit to give to the bartender for "one on the house". Pleased about this excellent service the fly wanders off to meet another spider and the whole transaction is in play. The bartender, possibly Diego, looks at the scrap of paper and from the casually written initials from the front knows why this guest is being treated by, in theory, the management. Let us for the sake of conversation say it is Diego. His open, smiling face is an excellent greeter, the drink ordered is of more than generous proportions and, when he stands on the other side of the bar to, possibly clear a table, he's showing more nuts than were just offered as a snack. A good wipe to his buzz cut and that resolves many questions. Depending on how suddenly unable to stand the guest may determines how hard he's suddenly got. Step two is to inadvertently spill the barest amount of something in his lap and, horrors, that must be attended to. Diego is extremely sorry, amends must be made and, to facilitate that, he rings "someone" at the front desk to explain his carelessness and to ask that help be provided. Diego has not dialed the front desk on the house phone but rather used his cell phone to ring another cell phone not necessarily in the lobby. In but moments a putative "assistant manager" appears to take him upstairs and to relieve him of his wet things. And not just in some room overlooking the service entrance, no, to a penthouse suite. The gentleman leading him on turns out to have some extra time and, while they're waiting for things to dry out almost incidentally seems to know-after all he passed the front desk-of the request the gentleman made and is only too willing, if off the record, to be of assistance. It's an impressive moment to the guest. And one for which he fully expects to pay...quite a lot. The suite, the barber shop set up in an adjacent room, the steam, the man before him stripping...the sound of clippers as he's tightly bound into the chair-if that's what seems a good idea-all come with a hefty price. And we accept all major credit cards. As he feels the first subtle cut or scrape or clipper he relaxes-well parts of him relax-in anticipation of a pleasant afternoon. Downstairs Diego is calling for the next "assistant" the clerks are looking for the next "customer" and Phil and I are in our offices knowing that even while we work for others, others are working for us. Occasionally on weekends or during special events, we damn near need the whole penthouse floor. Diego's bar is so full he's too busy to answer the phone and the "assistants" are racing through the lobby to tend to "guests". If you assume that eventually getting a seat in our barber chair did not require checking it you would be correct. And, though we hadn't the time to do the research-oh, that Diego-we acquired a number of places about the city that catered to particular tastes. Want a barber who insists on doing it his way? That shop is on Oakhurst while the one for more complete shaves (requiring privacy and time) in on the second floor of the Insurance Centre.

I suppose this explains why, in an age of everyone doing everything for themselves, being a barber remains a good profession.

Often Coach and I would speculate on how all this happened. How an empire of sorts was built on a simple act that men usually do every day. I will grant you, not in the way we offered but it's all the same.

Think, I would say to Coach, of the feeling of cool lather being spread over you after the hot towels are removed from your nuts. Think about a hard cock surrounded by an unwelcome under grove of disposable fur. Being stretched and held in that position so that a man, while dangling his dick over your mouth, slowly and determinedly begins the aggonizingly good feeling of not only knowing what the result will be but not wanting the process, that luxury of losing your hair to another's hands, to end. Done with a straight razor there's the idea that more than a shave might happen. A nick on the balls, just a bit off the top of the cock. Why not go all the way? Imagine a smooth patch below a stiff fleshy statue. How would that feel to shave? Good? Maybe........

Coach is almost unable to contain himself and it's necessary to milk him quickly before getting down to the basics of what I want for him and he want's me to give him. No questions asked as I chew on a nipple and use a hand to smear the thick lather wherever I want to shave it. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll surprize him with clippers and give his pits a crew cut or, I don't know, I never do.

Back in the suite I make a comment about the advisability of having a corporate attorney with a Mohawk, even one that is barely there. Why didn't you just get your nose pierced, it couldn't look much worse.

"Where's coach?"

"I don't know, why?"

We're stripping off our clothes and that old feeling is back.

"Well," as he pushes me onto the bed, "I just felt like renewing the partnership and didn't want your buddy interrupting." He spits on his fingers and begins to work them into my ass. "You see, I wanted you to have something to shave while I fucked you."

It's true, the friends you make in school you have all your life.