Homing Pigeon

E&M wed, 4, AZ bench, go low. Cecil

It had been over a year since Trevor Madison had heard from Arif, but a day hadn’t gone by that he didn’t think of the man. This message Trevor received was evidence Arif hadn’t forgotten about him either. It probably would have been best if they’d both moved on, Trevor realized. He’d never quite figured Arif out or his need for secrecy like this. Like this text that came in on his smartphone but had come up as not deliverable when he tried to reply.

He understood what Arif was telling him to do—and Arif had always been dominant and Trevor had done whatever Arif told him to do. “E&M wed,” gave a date, four days from now by way of the wedding anniversary date of mutual friends of Trevor and Arif in Amsterdam, where all four of them had been studying at the Keizer Culinair culinary institute at the time. The date reference, in the coding Arif had insisted on for their communications since Trevor had come to London and Arif had gone to “who knows?” also pinned down the location as Amsterdam. “4” presented the time to meet. “AZ” was the Artis Zoo in Amsterdam, where Trevor and Arif had hooked up before in their somewhat strange rare connection since the culinary school.

They had met at a specific bench at the zoo. “Go low” was telling Trevor to latch onto someone in Amsterdam who would house and feed him to keep him off the radar there, if possible. The one way to do that, of course, was to hook up with some sugar daddy for sex. Arif didn’t care if Trevor went under other men as long as he laid down for Arif whenever Arif wanted it. The “Cecil” signoff was establishing both that it was Arif and that Arif didn’t want his true name being used.

Despite the cloak-and-dagger secrecy, the connection between Trevor and Arif was purely sexual—at least from Trevor’s point of view—and had no particular reason to be as secret as it was. Trevor had no problem identifying as gay and Arif as dominant. Arif’s life had become so secret from Trevor, though, that, as far as Trevor knew, perhaps the man had a jealous wife and ten children. To Trevor, it was quite simple. Arif was a master and Trevor was his sex slave, even though they rarely connected. Trevor’s slavery to the Arab was constant.

Trevor couldn’t be sure even that “Arif” was the man’s real name. It was the name he used when they were studying at the Keizer Culinair. Trevor didn’t know if the man had already gone into some sort of secrecy obsession then or if it had happened later. When Arif started insisting on such convoluted means to meet, Trevor had thought the idea was sort of kicky. Now he wondered just why it had to be like this—or, rather, he would wonder that if Arif hadn’t made quite clear that he couldn’t be even thinking about that—not if he wanted to writhe under Arif the next time they could hook up.

And Trevor did want to writhe under Arif; he was lost to the man. He lived for the next tryst. So, he was locked into this game, if it was a game.

He had read the text while on break in the kitchen of the London restaurant he worked in. He’d worked up to the position of head chef. The restaurant was doing well and he was training two chefs to be able to run the kitchen when he wasn’t there.

He went into the restaurant owner’s office. “You have a minute, Howard?”

“Of course,” the restauranteur answered. “The butcher order came in on time, I hope.”

“Yes, it did. It’s about the training in the kitchen.”

“I hope Nadia and John aren’t cutting it.”

“No, just the opposite. I think Nadia is at the point that she should go solo in charge in the kitchen for a week and that John probably could too. They could split the shifts as far as taking the lead. I think I need to back out and not be there to lean on for a while. They need to fly solo long enough to see if there’s something they can’t handle yet. If they work together, they should make up for what the other shows they can’t do. I also have an invitation to go up to Edinburgh for a week. I’d like to suggest—”

“Sure, that sounds like a good idea,” Howard cut in. “You need the time off too. Go for it. I’ll watch them from here. I’m sure it will work out great.”

As he walked back to the kitchen, dialing the Eurostar number, Trevor had no idea why he’d told Howard he was going to Edinburgh when he was going to the continent instead. This secrecy game Arif insisted on playing was rubbing off on him. By the time he’d reached the kitchen, he’d reserved a seat on the Eurostar train from London’s St. Pancras station to Amsterdam Centraal, crossing the channel in the Chunnel, two days hence.

He started to contemplate booking a hotel room as well by phone, but he remembered the “go low” instruction. He’d have to try to pick up a sugar daddy while on the train. That didn’t particularly bother him. He was young, good-looking, and fit. He’d never had trouble picking up men before. And he did it often. He liked the variety and the lack of commitment.

Arif was the only one Trevor would always go running to if he beckoned.

* * * *

“Go low,” Arif’s message had said. What that meant to Trevor was that he should be off the radar in Amsterdam. No hotel room, no restaurant charges. Amsterdam is known to have more rent-boys in it than any other city in the world. Trevor had paid his way at the Keizer Culinair school in this way. As he never had a problem attracting a john, his Amsterdam experience gave him confidence that he had what it took to be a rent-boy—at least then. Since becoming an established chef at a good restaurant in London, he hadn’t had to do that. He’d had hookups and short-term boyfriends, none of which compared with Arif, which was why he was dropping everything and answering the call, but he hadn’t had to sell his body for the last few years.

He hadn’t forgotten how to hook up or lost his looks and form, though. Casual sex was a big party of his lifestyle. He didn’t give sex for money now, but he did go with well-heeled older men for expensive activities and gifts.

Thus, when he dressed to take the Eurostar to Amsterdam, he dressed in his “look at me” tight jeans and form-fitting T-shirt and arrived at the station early enough to be in the departure hall for more than a half hour and to sit in a prominent location. The bandana signal that had been popular for years wasn’t known by everyone still, but he employed it anyway, tying a navy-blue bandana around his right thigh. The custom was that this advertised a seeking bottom. It often worked for him, because he wanted to attract older men who were active when it was employed as a signaling device. To add to that he clipped a key chain fob to one of his belt loops in front that showed two interlocking male sex symbols in silver. For those looking for this signal, silver represented a seeking bottom and gold would be declaration of a top.

The combination of all of this worked. Three men showed interest in him in the London train station as they waited for the train to pull out at its 9:01 am scheduled time. Two of the men were middle aged, and only one of these looked like someone Trevor could get it up for in a long-weekend tryst in Amsterdam. The third guy was good-looking, beefy, and fit. He also was stylishly and expensively outfitted. So, it was this guy Trevor made eyes for as they waited to embark on the train, and he was gratified to see that the guy made eyes right back at him.

When the train pulled out of the station for the five-hour journey to the Netherlands, Trevor’s luck held. The seat next to him was empty, and, as the train chugged toward the Chunnel, the younger guy who had shown interest in him, dropped into that seat.

Trevor had saved some of his signaling and now brought that to bear. As the early-thirties man, good-looking, trim but well-muscled, dressed casually in dark-blue jeans, a light-blue jacket over a white polo shirt, and canvas loafers without socks, sat down, Trevor pulled out a copy of the Elska LGBT fashion magazine and a glossy copy of the Gay Guide to Amsterdam and let them rest on his lap. The dark-haired, Mediterranean-olive complexioned, foxy-looking guy couldn’t help but notice. He smiled in assurance of correctly gauging Trevor’s signals.

“Your first trip to Amsterdam?” he asked.

“No, I lived there for a year several years ago. But I bet a lot has changed since I was there. And you living there or vacationing there?”

“I live in Amsterdam now. But I keep a flat in London as well.” That answered whether he’d qualify as a sugar daddy.

“You’re not Dutch or English, though, are you?” Trevor asked. “Is that an American accent?”

“Yes, I’m an American.”

“But living in Amsterdam? And making a living there?”

“Yes, I like the open lifestyle I can have in Amsterdam. I have offices there and in London. I prefer Amsterdam. It’s freer.”

“Freer sexually?” Trevor asked.

“Yes, it suits an active gay lifestyle better than London does.”

As if to pin down where they were going with this, the man reached over and fingered the male-on-male silver key fob clipped to Trevor’s belt loop. “I have one of these, but it’s in gold.”

“Is it?” The basis for a hookup was established. It was just a question now if the man would help Trevor live off the grid in Amsterdam until he could meet up with Arif.

“What do you do in Amsterdam and what sort of living arrangements can you manage there? When I lived there, we had to have two or three guys to a room to be able to afford it.”

“I work in security and it pays well. I have a roommate in London—he tends bar at The Retro Bar. I live alone in Amsterdam, on one those nifty houseboats that dock on the many canals through the city.”

More signaling, as Trevor knew The Retro Bar was a gay bar. His interest was in Amsterdam, though. “That sounds nifty—about your Amsterdam digs. The houseboats intrigued me while I was living there. I always wanted to see inside of them, but I never got to.”

“That would be possible, if you’ll be in Amsterdam for a few days. You could look in mine. I’d be happy to show you around. My boat is tied up at Herengracht, which is just one street over from the Reguliersdwarsstraat area. Are you familiar with that area?”

“I was, of course. It was the place for gays to go when I lived there. Is it still that?”

“Yes, but maybe not so much gay-dominating anymore. I certainly could show you where the places to go are now, if you had the time and if you were looking for gay domination.” He looked meaningfully at Trevor and was rewarded with a smile. “Is that what you’re looking for in Amsterdam? Gay domination?”

“Yes,” Trevor answered.

“Where are you staying in the city?” the man pressed in.

“I haven’t booked anyplace to stay in the city. I should only be there three or four days, but it was a last-minute decision to go, and I was hoping maybe to hook up with someone there who could put me up.”

“Hook up with a guy there?”

“Yes.”

“You could hook up with me, if you like. If you like what you see. If you like what you feel. My name is Tony. Tony Reynolds.” The man took Trevor’s hand and laid it on his crotch so that Trevor could get a feel for what he was packing. “I dominate.”

“Staying on your houseboat?” Trevor asked. “I’ve never seen the inside of one of those before. I’m Trevor. Trevor Madison. I’m a chef. I could cook you up some great meals if you supplied the fixings.”

“That would be great, Trevor. Just one question then.”

“What?”

“Do you have a soft mouth and will you take cock two or three times a day?”

Reynolds looked around to see if anyone was observing them, and when he saw no one was, he moved his hand to Trevor’s crotch. Trevor slouched down more in his seat and spread his legs to give the man a good feel. He was hard. He wanted Reynolds to know he was.

“I like it big and often,” Trevor said. Linking up with a sugar daddy had been even less of a problem than he’d thought it would be.

Their lips met, and Trevor opened to Reynold’s tongue, signaling that he was an easy submissive. What he was thinking, though, was that it had been easy to “go low” as Arif had directed him to do. He didn’t know why Arif demanded such secrecy, but it wasn’t Trevor’s place in their relationship to wonder about that.

This man was giving him something to wonder about, though. He had turned his body toward the window, toward Trevor, and Trevor had unzipped him and inserted his hand, going under the leg hole of the man’s briefs and taking the flesh-on-flesh measure of him.

Pulling away from the kiss, Trevor whispered, “Now that’s a gun,” working on heating the guy up.

The response was unexpected. Reynolds jerked and pulled away a bit, but then settled back into Trevor, place a hand on top of the one Trevor had inserted in his fly, grasping Trevor’s hand through material and causing it to stroke his engorging cock.

It was only then that Trevor realized he’d felt something else as Reynolds leaned into him—something under his jacket, at his armpit. A gun holster.

What in the hell had he gotten himself into, Trevor wondered. But that was lost in the moment. The seatbacks were high. There were few other passengers in this car, none close to them, and no one was walking the aisle. Reynolds took Trevor’s head in his hands and pulled the young man’s face down into his crotch.

Trevor opened his mouth and slid his lips down the sides of Reynolds’s shaft. The American started to rock his hips against the Brit’s face, his eyes darting around to ensure they weren’t being observed.

“Yes, yes. That’s good. Suck it,” Reynolds murmured. “We’re gonna have a great time.”

* * * *

“This is great,” Trevor said as Reynolds unlocked and opened the hatch of the barge-like vessel tied up to the side of the Herengracht Street canal in the city center. They descended into the dimness of the rich-oak-walled living area. Beyond was a kitchen area on the street side of the interior and a bathroom on the canal side and then a door leading into the bedroom in the stern of the vessel that was dominated by a huge bed. The tour took no more than a few minutes. The décor was nautical with red textiles against aged oak.

“Just the one bed,” Trevor said.

“Yes, or do we not have an understanding?” Tony asked.

“Yes, of course. That includes gourmet meals on my part. Is there a market nearby?”

“Close enough. But later. Would you like a drink now? Beer good? Amstel? Heineken?”

“Either is fine.”

Reynolds took off his jacket and his holster. There was a gun in the holster. Both were draped on the back of a chair at an oak table on the kitchen side of the cabin. Reynolds didn’t explain the gun and Trevor didn’t ask. He stripped off his shirt too, as if it was a natural thing to do. This left him bare-chested. The man had a muscular, cut torso, hard as a rock. Trevor couldn’t help but notice the two pocked bullet marks—one on his lower right torso and the other in the hollow of his shoulder.

“Strip down. I want to see what I’m getting,” Reynolds said as he moved behind the kitchen counter and opened the refrigerator door.

Trevor stripped down to his red silk bikini briefs. Turning from the refrigerator, Reynolds said, “No, all of it,” and then, when Trevor had stripped off the briefs as well, he murmured, “Very nice. Very nice indeed.”

When he came out from behind the counter, swinging two bottles of Amstel in his hands, Reynolds too had dropped his trousers and briefs. He already was in erection and crowned with a condom. Trevor sucked in his breath. He’d already got the measure of the man’s cock, but, in the buff and again in full erection, he was the model of hard-bodied fighting trim. There was a pock mark in his left thigh as well.

Smiling, Reynolds approached; handed Trevor one of the beer bottles; stood there, close to him; and took a deep drink from his. As Trevor was doing the same, Reynolds put his beer bottle down on the table, reached for and took Trevor’s from his, and ditched that bottle as well.

Catching Trevor completely by surprise, Reynolds lashed out with the back of his hand, striking the other young man across the face, snapping Trevor’s head to one side. The man’s other hand reached down and he grabbed Trevor by the nuts and squeezed them.

With a gasp and a yelp, Trevor’s knees gave way and he went down on the floor of the cabin on the wall-to-wall red carpet. Hovering over the bent-over young man, Reynolds let loose of his nuts, ran an arm under his belly, and put him in the doggy position there on the cabin floor. Throwing a leg over Trevor’s hips, he put himself in mounted position. Grasping his erection, he pushed the head of his cock into Trevor’s butt crack and found the hole.

Trevor gasped and panted and groaned as the thick, hard cock forced its way into him, splitting and spreading him painfully, no preparation other than a slicked-up condom having been given. The arm under his belly became a hand palming his belly. The other hand grasped Trevor’s neck, holding his cheek against the carpet as the invading cock opened him up. With a long moan, Trevor relaxed his channel and the shaft was inside him. The hand left his neck and Reynolds started moving in rhythm on top of Trevor, back and forth, in and out, opening him more, making the young man’s channel his. He slapped Trevor’s buttocks and thighs and back as he set up a cadence of the fuck.

When Trevor had settled down and was moving his pelvis with the motion, Reynolds ran his fingers into the hair on the back of Trevor’s head, pushing his face into the carpet and fucking him with long, deep thrusts. Trevor ran a hand under his belly, grasped his cock, and stroked himself off to the rhythm the other man had set. His eyes were set on the chair back where the man’s light-blue jacket was hanging on the back, with the gun holster—with gun—hanging off side. What in the hell was a man doing with a concealed gun in Amsterdam? How had he managed to carry it from London? Just what sort of security was he involved in? Why didn’t Reynolds seem to care if Trevor knew he had a gun?

Reynolds laughed as he stroked. “I knew you’d want it like this.”

And, strangely enough, Trevor did want it like this. This was the way Arif took him—commandingly, brutally, cruelly, totally, taking no prisoners, raw, and with little notice or preparation.

* * * *

“Oh, fucking shit!” Trevor called out as, the young man on his belly, his wrists tied off at the headboard, and Tony Reynolds mounted on his ass in reverse, grasping Trevor’s ankles, and riding him like a bicyclist pumping uphill came to and achieved climax. Giving the younger man’s ankles a good squeeze, Reynolds pulled out, rolled off the bed, gave Trevor a stinging slap on the rump, and came around and released the young man’s wrists before going to the barge’s bathroom. He left the door open so that, rolling over on his back, panting, Trevor could watch him piss in the toilet and then, with a come-hither look, climb into a shower that looked like it couldn’t hold them both. But, sitting up on the side of the bed, with a groan, Trevor padded into the bathroom to prove that theory wrong.

This was the second time they’d fucked. This second time it had been bareback. Trevor hadn’t done that before and found that the raw slide and release were exotic and erotic. Producing pills this time, Reynolds said, “This in Amsterdam. There’s a remedy for everything like that here. We get the most out of our pleasures here.” Trevor took it on faith that the man was right. Reynolds was in as much risk as Trevor was.

This was also the second shower they’d taken. Trevor was a bit worried about that, Reynolds having said that rain barrels were the major source of toilet and shower water on the barge, but that, ultimately, would be Reynolds’s worry just as with most everything else. The mysterious—and maybe dangerous—man was exercising his dominance.

After that first shower, Reynolds had acknowledged that Trevor had promised to prepare the meals. Reynolds had approved of the suggestion for veal marsala for dinner and had produced a wad of cash and directions to local shops where Trevor could find the makings for that.

“You’ll send me out alone?” Trevor asked.

“The shops are nearby and easy to find,” Reynolds had said. “Just remember to take your cellphone. Always take your cellphone.” He took up Trevor’s cellphone from the kitchen counter and plugged in his number. “Just call me if you need anything.”

Trevor had felt a little strange about that—that he could go out on his own. Since they’d hooked up, he’d felt the older man had been protective of him. The interior atmosphere of the barge cabin was a bit close and Trevor had felt under the man’s control. The presence of the gun might have had something to do with the impression he got. And now he was being let free to shop on his own. He’d worried a bit how he would move on to meet with Arif at the zoo in a couple of days, but if the man let him go shopping on his own . . .

The mood had changed again when Trevor returned with the groceries he’d needed. Tony had slapped him around again, carried him into the bed, bound his wrists to the headboard of the bed, and fucked the hell out of him.

After their shower this time, Trevor had looked for his clothes and shoes when he came out of the bathroom. All he found were the red bikini briefs.

“You don’t need the rest until we go out again after supper,” Reynolds said. “I like watching your body move. I’ll be just in briefs too.” And the man was stripped down as well through dinner, but Trevor returned to feeling that he was being controlled and somewhat of a prisoner on the barrage. He couldn’t leave on his own in just skimpy briefs and barefoot.

“After dinner we’ll do the gay clubs. We’ll see how they’ve changed since you last were in the city.”

So, after dinner Trevor’s clothes reappeared on the bed and they went to the Reguliersdwarsstraat area just one ring street toward the dock area from where the barge was piered. That was the section of the city where gay life had centered in Amsterdam since long before Trevor had matriculated at the Keizer Culinair cooking institute. They hit the Club NYX bar scene, moving on from there to the Café Reality Bar, and ending up taking in the drag show at Bar Lellebel. Everywhere they drank, hit the dancefloor, and both ogled and were ogled as the handsome, fit, gay men they were.

Reynolds ran hot and cold on the “keeping Trevor” close and touched scene, being there with him whenever another men showed interest—and, half-drunk, Trevor could be a saucy flirt—but letting Trevor go to the loo on his own with just the admonition, “Be sure to take your cellphone with you.”

As the night went on, Trevor threw caution to the wind and stripped off his shirt to dance and exhibit for appreciative audiences. Reynolds kept his shirt and jacket on, though, and Trevor surmised that this was because the man had come out for the evening with the gun and holster in his armpit. Trevor never lost awareness that the man was armed—or that he kept darting his eyes about wherever they were as if he were Trevor’s bodyguard rather than his date for the night.

Why did the man have to go everywhere armed? It was a question Trevor kept trying to shove to the back of his brain but that kept floating forward.

Back on the barge, Tony took Trevor, naked, his clothes once more disappearing, to bed. And, in the bed, he took Trevor again and again. He had discovered that this was what kept Trevor fully under control—keeping him perpetually shafted.

The man had inventive, athletic moves. He lay on his back on the bed, Trevor on top of him, facing the low, oak-wood ceiling of the cabin. Reynolds used four handcuffs to bind their wrists and ankles together, and, stretched out on Tony’s body, Trevor rode the man’s cock.

As they fucked, his attention went to a straight chair by the bed, where Reynold’s jacket and gun holster were draped over the chair back. Why did he need it? Why did he keep it close?

Trevor cried out in ecstasy as Reynold’s own long, thick gun fired off again and again deep inside the younger man’s core.

* * * *

“I thought I’d make Rouladin tonight,” Trevor said the next afternoon. “But, if so—or anything else—we’ll have to go to the markets.”

“What’s Rouladin?” Reynold’s asked. They were stretched out beside each other on the bed. Trevor had just paid the rent again, this time sitting in Tony Reynold’s lap as the man sat on the bed, with Trevor facing him, and having fucked himself on Reynold’s cock by bouncing up and down on it. Trevor was showing that he certainly had no problem with the sex part of being in the cabin so much with Reynolds. They hadn’t been off the boat much in the last two days; when they had been Reynolds had kept close to Trevor—and he’d always been carrying his holstered gun.

“It’s a German dish. Very thinly sliced beef wrapped around slices of dill pickle, carrots, bacon, slathered with mustard, and roasted.”

“Sounds good. I’ll get your duffel bag out so you can dress.”

“You’ll let me go alone?” They indeed needed to shop if Trevor was going to fix a dinner, but he was mostly testing again whether Tony was going to let him off the boat by himself. His meeting with Arif was the next afternoon. He couldn’t do that with Reynolds dragging along.

“Sure. Just remember to take your cellphone.”

“I haven’t seen much of the area, and we’re right in the center of the old downtown area. Maybe I could take a long walk before going to the market?” How much time would the man give him tomorrow before going to look for him? Trevor couldn’t imagine what Arif, who was so secretive, would do if an armed man showed up while they were meeting.

“Sure. It’s a great day for it. I have some work to do. Again, just remember to take your cellphone.”

That was something else. Tony said he worked in security. There hadn’t been any evidence in the last two days that Tony worked in anything.

But it was established. Trevor should be able to get off alone to meet Arif at the Artis Zoo the next day at 4:00 p.m.

Trevor’s outing and the dinner he fixed went fine. They went clubbing that night again, Reynolds showing him yet more gay male clubs, more toward the leather bar this night, in the Reguliersdwarsstraat area. Again, Reynolds stuck to him like glue, and, again, he went armed and on guard as if he expected trouble to find them.

At one point, Reynolds left where they were seated to refill their drinks and an olive-complexioned, sultry Arab-world type stud in black leathers and chest harness, who Trevor had maintained eye contact while the man slowly gyrated on the nearby dance floor, started to come over, the two in eye contact during the approach. Trevor was a pushover for sexy Arab types—witness his obsession and subservience to Arif. The Arab never made it to him, though. Two bodyguard types materialized from thin air and grabbed the Arab. Reynolds was returning at the same time. Slamming the drinks down on the table, he turned, flipped open the lapel of his jacket, and displayed his gun holster. The Arab disappeared. Reynolds smiled at Trevor but said nothing. The rest of the evening went smoothly, but not without Trevor thinking he was being controlled.

And, once again, Reynolds bound and fucked Trevor in exotic and demanding positions through half the night.

* * * *

“I was thinking of going Greek tonight—maybe Moussaka.”

“Sounds great. Everything you’ve made so far has been terrific. You did well in your culinary school.”

“I’ll have to go shopping again, though,” Trevor said, trying to keep his voice calm. It was 3:00 p.m. and his rendezvous with Arif on the bench at the Artis Zoo was set for 4:00. He couldn’t take his duffel bag, but all he needed to get out of that was his passport. Arif would provide everything else he needed wherever they went—and Trevor wouldn’t require clothes while he was with Arif.

“OK, I’ll give you some money and unlock the cabinet so you can get into your bag for something to wear,” Reynolds said. “Just don’t forget to take your cellphone.”

Always concern for the cellphone. But if Tony let him free, it didn’t really matter if he had his cellphone or not. The Tony Reynolds phase was about over. It had been a strange ride, but Reynolds had been great in bed.

Trevor walked northeast to where the Herengracht ended at the Amstel canal, crossed that on the Bluawbrug bridge and then worked his way east to the Artis Zoo. He was as careful as he could be to ensure he wasn’t being followed. In earlier hookups with Arif, the man had given him some pointers in evading surveillance and Trevor employed everything he knew about that, as he knew Arif would expect him to do. He went around the block a couple of times, observing everyone else on the street and, from time to time, paused at shop windows and used the reflection of the windows to check out everyone around him. When he reached the zoo park, he was confident that he hadn’t been followed.

That hadn’t been necessary. Reynolds and his colleagues had already worked out from the text message that had set all of this off that “AZ” stood for the zoo. They didn’t know where in the zoo, but they devised it would be 4:00 on whatever day Trevor went on the move. That was today. And they didn’t need to keep him in sight as he moved to the rendezvous. They’d had his cellphone bugged for several months in anticipation of this meeting.

Trevor made it to the designated bench at the stroke of 4:00. Less than two minutes later, Arif emerged from the bushes nearby. They barely had time to embrace before armed men, including Tony Reynolds, descended on them from all directions, separated them, and hustled Arif away.

It all—after months of planning and preparation—was over in a matter of moments.

Stunned, Trevor gave no resistance as Tony Reynolds settled him down on the bench.

“What . . . Why?” Trevor stammered out.

“I don’t know how much you knew about this guy you were meeting,” Tony said. “We’ll find that out in your debriefing. But he’s a major terrorist. You’ve helped us get him off the street, whether you meant to or not.”

Trevor took a moment to absorb what had just happened, but he managed to figure out the gist of it. “You’ve been tracking me since London, haven’t you?”

“Yes—through your cellphone. We managed to find out enough about his background to know he went to the Keizer Culinair school here—and that he had male lovers here. We found that his relationship with you never stopped, so that gave us the in we needed.”

“You used me.”

“And we’ll determine how connected to all of this you’ve been.”

“I didn’t know. I just knew that Arif was secretive. He didn’t involve me in anything, really.”

“Other than sex.”

“You know how easily I can be used that way,” Trevor said, defiantly, accusingly.

“Yes, and didn’t we both have fun?” Reynolds said, standing his ground on that point. “I’ll be going now, but you’ll need to talk to the boss. Don’t think of trying to break away. There are men nearby to see that you make your debriefing. If you’re innocent—and I think you are—you’ll fully cooperate.”

Trevor looked around. There were, indeed, more beefy men stationed around the area than was justified for a walk in the zoo park. Two of them he recognized as the ones who hustled off the Arab dancer at the nightclub the previous evening. And walking toward him was a tall, ramrod-straight military officer-type man in his fifties.

“The boss,” Reynolds said. “You’ll need to treat him with respect and complete honesty. If you think I was cruel and controlling, you haven’t seen anything yet.” He stood from the bench as the man arrived and sat there. And then Tony Reynolds was gone.

“You are Trevor Madison,” the man said, voicing it as a statement of foreknowledge and not as a question. “I am Sam.” He made no more introduction at that point, but he was, in fact, Sam Winterberry, the chief of the CIA’s Candy Store unit, a special operations office inside the U.S. intelligence services that combined the world’s two oldest professions—prostitution and spying—to further the intelligence interests of the United States.

“We know everything there is to know about you—and about your relationship with the terrorist Arif Ayad. If we didn’t think that your connection was only a sexual one, forged before Ayad became radicalized and not having included you in that aspect of the man’s political activities, we would be having a different conversation with you. But we won’t be letting you go now, I’m afraid. From here there will be a debriefing in my hotel room and then a ‘where do we go from here’ discussion.”

“Where do we go from here? You say you believe I have nothing to do with whatever you’ve apprehended Arif for. I don’t. We just have been friends from our culinary school days.”

“More than just friends,” Winterberry said, with a snort.

“Yes, more than friends. And, yes, Arif is controlling in that way and an obsession I can’t give up. But as for terrorism—”

“A man named Nabil Fayed was at this school too, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, Nabil was a teacher there. I don’t see—”

“And it was Fayid who first seduced you and then turned you over to Ayad, wasn’t it?”

Trevor paused. “I don’t see what—”

“Ayad is important to us, but he isn’t as far up in the terrorist organization chain as Nabil Fayed is. We want Fayed even more than we did Ayad.”

A glint of recognition was dawning on Trevor. “I haven’t seen or heard from Nabil since I left the culinary school. I have no connection whatsoever with him anymore.”

“But when you did, you let him use and control you as much as you’ve let Ayad did so.”

“I can’t help my nature—my wants and my needs I have a fetish for Arab men.”

“Well, yes, we’ll exercise your wants and needs up in my hotel room.”

My, that sounded ominous, Trevor thought. He took another look at the man. He was Marine-general commanding in appearance. Reynolds had said he was even more cruel and manipulative than Reynolds had been. Trevor shuddered. Would he open his legs for a man like this? He knew he would. More important, this Sam seemed to know he would.

“But for now, I think we still need you,” Winterberry continued. “We think you’ll be contacted by Fayed for just the sort of meet up as the one we trapped Ayad with here today.”

“Why would Nabil want to contact me? We haven’t seen each other since I lived in Amsterdam before.”

“Because Fayed is the next one up on the terrorist organization from Ayad. Because he will know Ayad has been taken, and that he was taken while meeting with you.”

“How would he know that?” Trevor asked. “Arif is always so secretive. We were meeting for sex. I don’t think he would tell Nabil he still was meeting with me. They fought over me.”

“Fayed will know because we will make sure he knows. We will want him to hook up with you again and we will be there then, and we will capture him then the same way we captured Ayad today.”

“You will use me. I will be your homing pigeon,” Trevor said.

“Exactly,” Winterberry answered. “That’s a very good way to put it.” And, looking at him—and the way the man looked at Trevor—Trevor realized there were no scruples in play here. He was just a pawn—a homing pigeon, as he said—in something at work that was greater than he was and that had no regard for his needs or rights. He shuddered in the realization that that aroused him—that one of his fetishes was to be used cruelly by other men, demanding and controlling men. His time on the canal barge with Tony Reynolds, being controlled and used, although he now knew it was to protect and monitor him, had kept him at a high level of sexual arousal.

Could this man, this older, Marine general-type man . . . would this man . . . ? Trevor trembled at the thought that, yes, he could, and, yes, he would. Would he be big, virile, vigorous? Would he possess, stretch, fill, and hold Trevor captive of his shaft? Was this what Trevor would want, seek, become a slave to? Is this what he had gotten from Arif—and more recently from Tony Reynolds—and now needed to seek from elsewhere? Would Trevor submit to becoming a slave of this man, Sam Winterberry? Yes, of course. This was Trevor’s weakness.

“We will go now for debriefing, testing, recruitment, and instruction,” Winterberry said.

“In your hotel room—testing,” Trevor murmured.

“Yes,” a smiling Sam Winterberry confirmed. “I control all of my agents. You are becoming an agent in the fight against terrorism. Did you enjoy Tony Reynolds? I think I have taught him well.”