Switching Sides

I was sore for several days after Haluk Badem fucked me. I had been aroused by the coupling, but it had made me want to fuck someone myself—not be fucked again like that anytime soon. Cemil kept throwing men at me, mostly young construction worker types. They certainly aroused me, but I was becoming more and more determined to slip out from underneath Cemil's control.

I needed a man of my own choosing.

Having overheard talk among the construction workers of dating sites on the Internet, I decided to try to go that route—and far enough afield that the men wouldn't have connections to Cemil. I had picked up enough Turkish by now to have a basic understanding of navigating the Internet in that language, but I was pleased to find gay male dating sites hosted in Turkey where English was an option for navigating and profile reading and to discover that Turkish men were eager to learn English, as it was the international language of business.

The kicker is that dating sites couldn't admit to be based in Turkey or they'd quickly be shut down. It took me a while to figure out that that was the case. The trick, I learned, was to go to what appeared—and largely was—a Lebanese gay male dating site. This included sections on Turkey and other countries in the region where gays were routinely suppressed and thus couldn't have gay dating sites of their own. There were codes on locations, the Turkish locales not being directly identified. Again, overhearing the construction workers talk about this clued me in. There were men from Kusadasi on the Lebanese site, notably a few of the construction workers working on my hotel. I bypassed these, though, and, having learned the code location for Izmir, I zeroed in on those listings. Izmir was a bigger city than Kusadasi and was on the coast some sixty miles north of Kusadasi. That was only forty miles from my house in Bayraklidede. It seemed, I thought, far enough away to be beyond Cemil's influence. I certainly did what I could to keep from him that I was shopping on the Internet.

The key here was that I sought a man of my own choosing.

Turkey was not a comfortable place to be gay. Prominent men like Cemil Teke could be flamboyantly gay and even indulge in his fetish for younger conquests—but only with continual risk and a lot of palms being greased or favors dispensed. For the rest, the lifestyle was there, but it had to be kept under wraps unless one had a protector. That was what Cemil did for the Hotel Antinous. He put together a network of protection within Kusadasi, but, in so doing, he established control over me.

Izmir was as open with the gay lifestyle as anywhere in Turkey. It was still a strong undercurrent—older men and younger men and boys—in Istanbul, but very much under the surface, in back-alley dens of iniquity where only the very well placed and very wealthy could play. There was some of that in Izmir too, but Izmir was the most cosmopolitan city in Turkey and, with a U.S. airbase near at hand, was open enough for gay men that there were a handful of gay bars and, as long as you had transport, there was a gay beach at some distance west along the peninsula from Izmir.

I found quite a good selection of seeking men from Izmir on the Internet. Most appeared to be rent-boys; many quite obviously were underage, which I was determined to stay away from. All were eager to hook up with an American, most saying that they wanted to practice their English. I wasn't fooled; I knew they wanted to get at an American's money. They also probably thought these would be short hookups, mostly with U.S. Air Force personnel, who would be leaving Turkey after a short stint. I had been warned that many of those I'd meet on the Internet in these services were married, with children, and were just double dipping for extra cash.

I didn't have any trouble attracting attention. I had written a profile identifying myself as a photographer who would pay good money to photograph naked young men for international collectors. I wasn't shy in adding that I'd pay for sex as well. A key part of the "not shy" was that, by now, I'd set up my darkroom in the basement of the hotel and put in enough of the studio for it to be functional and, with the use of mirrors, I'd taken high-quality nude photos of myself. I posted the real me on the dating sites and started getting hits just moments later. I remembered to thank the good genes I'd inherited from my movie star parents.

After several misses and prolonged journeys to "I don't think so," I settled on a young man, who, if he'd posted a photo of the real him, was a handsome devil, who looked intelligent as well as sexy. His profile said he worked in a lawyer's office, was a college graduate in business administration, twenty-four—thus thirteen years my junior, worked out, and was a swimmer (both of which were evident from his photograph), and was unattached. He didn't boast of being greatly experienced—more the opposite, which made him more attractive to me. And he was honest and smart enough to say "perhaps" to the photographs, but only if he could be masked and if the photos only went to private collectors and ones who weren't located in the Mediterranean area.

We agreed on meeting one evening at the Ehli Keyif bar on 850 Sok in Izmir, a smaller, more intimate, and discreet gay bar—one he said the American flyers didn't often go to. He claimed he was thinking of me, as an American, and maybe not wanting to run into other Americans. I gave him props for being sensitive and, after so many near misses already, I'd put him up at the head of the list.

I went to Izmir and booked for two nights, the night before our meeting and the night of our meeting at the Antikhan Hotel, which, by nosing around and obliquely asking questions, I decided was the best I was going to get in Izmir in terms of small hotels that didn't take a close, critical look at who walked by the front desk and up the stairs to the hotel rooms. I spent the day looking around Izmir and, at 10:00 that evening I was sitting at the bar at the Ehli Keyif, nursing an Efes beer.

The young man stood me up.

* * * *

10:45 and no Jemal—that was the name he had given me. But, of course, it wasn't his real name, I was sure. After two beers by myself with other guys giving me the eye, I pushed the glass away from me and prepared to rise from the barstool.

"Excuse me. Are you alone? May I buy you a beer?"

I turned and looked at the tall, thin man who had come up beside me at the bar. He'd been here when I arrived, sitting alone at a table. He wasn't young, maybe ten years older than I was. He stood ramrod tall, a good head taller than I was. Very distinguished looking, he was. An authority figure type. Or a professor. Certainly a professional man, handsome of face, with chiseled features, a fine head of salt-and-pepper hair, with more gray at the temples. He was dressed casually, in a silk shirt, khakis, and leather loafers, but expensively, the clothes obviously tailored to fit his body closely. The top two buttons of his shirt were open, revealing darker chest hair than on his head. I had already noticed that he clearly was comfortable drinking in a gay bar.

"I was just about to leave," I said. "I may have had enough beer." It didn't sound even to me that I wanted to leave. What I wanted was to lay someone, and I was pissed that Jemal hadn't shown.

"Do you have to go?" he said. "Perhaps you'd like to change to scotch—on me, of course. Two scotches, Sami, if you please." The last was spoken to the bartender, who immediately went into action and produced the tumblers of amber liquor, neat.

"Thank you," I said.

"You've been here for a while . . . American, are you? From the airbase? Were you meeting someone who hasn't turned up?"

A lot to unpack. I took a sip of the scotch. I was drinking the man's liquor now. I was obligated to talk to him for at least the duration of emptying the glass he'd caused to be filled. It didn't really seem like an obligation, though. I'd never been with an older man as a top. I'd never thought of it. I assume the older of the two would be the top, and I wasn't shopping for a top. I was intentionally striving for switching sides entirely now—being the top with a man. Just another man and me. And I realized at this moment that I really was looking for a more permanent arrangement too. A partner.

"Yes, it looks like he isn't showing up," I said. "And, yes, I'm an American. But I'm not in the service. I'm a permanent resident in Turkey now."

"You said 'he.' So, you are aware of what kind of bar this is."

"Yes, although this is the first time I've been here."

"And the first time you were meeting with this 'he'?"

"Yes." I felt his hand on my thigh, and I turned and looked into his eyes. They were gray, searching. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, what he wanted. I felt weak, under his control. I wasn't looking to bottoming for anyone.

"You were hooking up with this man?" he asked. "Sami, refresh our drinks, please." He turned his attention back to me and said, "So, you are Greek?"

That caused me to pause, and I almost repeated that I was an American, but then, thinking back on what I'd been told Turks called men who were gay, I realized what he was asking me. He wasn't asking me for a nationality now. He was being much more intimate—which went with that hand he had on my leg and that I hadn't shirked away from.

"Yes, I prefer men," I answered. "I used an Internet dating service, but I guess the young man got cold feet." His hand had moved around to the front of my thigh, high up. His forefinger was pressing into the crease where my leg met my groin. It was like that was some sort of arousal spot, and I certainly was aroused by the pressure of the finger.

"Ah, a young man. And who was to be submissive? Him or you?"

"Him," I said, taking a long sip on the scotch. I'd have to stay at least until I'd finished the drink. But I knew I wanted to stay anyway. But did he want to? Was telling him I wanted to top putting him off? "I have been versatile before, but I'm here because I want to top." There, I'd said it.

He smiled, muttered, "Good," and his hand went to my crotch, cupping my package. "Is this OK with you?" he asked. "Are you nervous? Am I being too forward?" He was running his fingers down the sides of my engorging cock encased in the material of my trousers. "Umm, nice," he murmured.

"No, I don't mind. I only want to top, though," I repeated. I both heard and felt my zipper being lowered. Then I felt his fingers searching for and finding the flesh of my cock. "Fuck," I murmured.

"Nice, very nice," he said. "I'll pay you 300 lira to let me suck you; 1,000 lira for the use of your body for the night. For the use of your cock—inside me."

"I'm not a rent-boy . . . not a prostitute," I said. He was fully encasing my cock and squeezing it. The lighting was such in the bar and we were turned so that no one could see that he was stroking me off right there. The bartender was nearby, but this presumably wasn't disturbing him even if he could guess what was happening.

"All the better. But perhaps you could be a rent-boy just for the night. I would use your cock, although I would not be submissive to you. I will take you inside me, but I will control. Have you ever covered a man who was dominant?"

"No."

"Would you like to have the experience?"

I gave that thought. Why not? "Yes, but you need not pay for it. You've spotted me two scotches."

"I want to pay for it. I want you to be prostituted to me."

"My hotel is . . ."

"I have a club nearby. From here I give the direction. You give me your body, your cock, for the night. But I pay and I command. You will be my prostitute for the night. From here, you do what I tell you to do, me using your cock."

His club was down a nondescript alley, but once inside the courtyard, all was opulent—and male. Two sides of the open-air courtyard were devoted, in two balconied stories, to rooms that opened out onto the passageway. The third side were the rooms of some sort of club, where, through the lighted windows, I could see men and I could hear music. But we didn't go there. We climbed the stairs to the second level of rooms opening off the balcony, he unlocked one of the doors and then locked it behind me again when I was inside. The room was like a movie rendition of a harem chamber: Turkish carpets on the floor and walls, a king-sized divan, covered in crimson silk and taking up much of the floor, a modern bath off to the side, and silken pillows everywhere.

I lay back, swathed in pillows, on the bed, naked, while he knelt between my spread thighs and played with my cock with his hands until I was throbbing and panting. He too was naked and gaunt, but hard-muscled, ropey, his veins standing out blue on dark skin because there was no fat for them to run through. The hair on his chest descended in tight curls, getting ever darker down to his bush. His cock was long and thin, his balls hanging low. I was as long as he was but thicker and my balls nestled closer into my scrotum—at least until he started working on them, distending them, squeezing them, and rolling them, making me whimper and groan.

He played with my cock and balls for a good fifteen minutes. When I thought I might come, he slapped it, which caused it to lose its erection. He played it again to throbbing erection and then slapped it to half hard again, me moaning my frustration. At length He rose up my body, stretching out beside me, taking my mouth in his, invading my mouth cavity with his tongue, and taking my hand to his cock. We slow stroked each other to ejaculations, him taking me all the way this time, and then lay there in each other's arms, recovering our breathing.

"All night?" he whispered.

"Yes, all night," I murmured.

We lay there, fondling each other, letting our hands roam over each other's bodies. He was older than I was, but there was no downside to that. He was hard as a rock, handsome, and experienced.

He reversed on my body, hovering over me, and we sixty-nined each other to another ejaculation.

Later I was inside him, but he was doing the fucking. I was on my back and he was saddled on my pelvis, rising and falling on my cock, taking me deep, pumping himself on me with a vigor and for a duration I wouldn't have thought possible for a man his age. He was in better shape and was far more athletic than I was. A military man perhaps?

We slept, but sometime before dawn, I opened my eyes to see that he was stretched out beside me, his eyes watching me. "Something special before you leave?" he asked.

"Yes, please," I answered.

Again I was stretched out on my back. He was reversed on me, his legs encasing and squeezing my sides, his toes dug into the mattress, his fists gripping my ankles, while, my cock up his ass, he leverage on his toes, pulling on and off my cock. I came in an explosion and he laughed.

As the morning light shown through the window, we sat, yoga style, facing each other, our legs wrapped around each other's waists, our arms around each other's chests, with him providing the rocking motion, my cock deep up into his passage.

"My name is Onur," he said. "Do you live in Izmir?"

"No. I live in a village called Bayraklidede," I answered. "My name is Cliff." I didn't even think of giving him a false name. He was so much in control that I knew he had given me his real given name.

"I know where that is. You will come to me again? Maybe once a month? You will give me your cellphone number, and I will call to make arrangements? I will give you a key to this room and arrange your entry to the club."

"Yes. But the money . . . I don't . . ."

"You will be paid. You will be a whore—my whore. When you are here you will be a rent-boy under my full command. That will pleasure me, and I think the thought of being someone's whore might be arousing to you too. I will use your body—your cock—for money. This is important to me. This is part of my arousal in this arrangement. Everything else in my life is so proper. And I want this to be sordid . . . something different and just a little bit risky."

With that, I became a Turkish prostitute. And I learned how one could dominate from the position of a bottom. It was sex in which I was the top. I was moving closer toward a total switch from my earlier life. It wasn't a partner relationship, but it got me off.

He was right. I was aroused by the sense of being his whore. That was something that had aroused me in the way Cemil Teke used me too, but I only now realized what the attraction of that was.

* * * *

I left Onur's club purring and ravenously hungry. I was able to find my hotel and stopped at an outdoor café on the street below and ate a hearty breakfast. When I returned to my room, I opened up my e-mails on my laptop. There was an e-mail from Jemal, the young man I had come here to meet. My hand hovered over it, wondering if I should even bother to open it. If he had a reason for not meeting me the night before, he could have just phoned me, I thought. Then I laughed. I hadn't given him my cellphone number—nor had I asked for one from him.

"Sorry I did not make it," his e-mail said. "The bus from my village broke down. I am in Izmir now, though. If you still want to meet."

The bus from his village? He hadn't noted before that he wasn't from Izmir. But, then, although I'd told him in e-mail exchanges I wasn't in Izmir, I hadn't told him where I was from. Did I want to meet with him now? I had Onur now—or maybe I had him. But not more than once a month. He, as good as the sex was, was dominant, even from the bottom position. He was a little scary. And he was older. I had envisioned a young man, one who would be submissive to me.

"I have to check out of my hotel at eleven, unless I have a reason not to," I keyed. "If you call me on my cellphone before then and want to meet, we can meet." I keyed in my cellphone number. He called less than ten minutes later. I gave him the name of the café downstairs where I'd had breakfast and asked him when he could be there. He answered that he'd be there in less than a half hour. It was not quite 10:00 a.m. I stopped at the reception desk on my way out and extended my stay for another night.

I knew exactly who he was as he approached from down the street. He was scanning those sitting at the café, and after sweeping his eyes over me, his attention returned and focused on me. His eyes flared and he smiled. I guess I'd passed first-impression muster with him. He did with me, as well. He was in his mid-twenties, was Lord Byron handsome, with alabaster skin; black, curly hair; hooded, bedroom eyes; and full, sensuous lips. His tight T-shirt revealed a good, if not overbuilt, physique. He was shorter than I was and trimmer. His linen trousers were baggy and thus didn't reveal much. He wore sandals without socks, and I found the shapeliness of his bare feet arousing. There was a shyness about him that promised submissiveness. There was nothing, on initial impression not to like.

He was also looking properly sheepish and apologetic. I accepted that he appreciated that he'd had an appointment that was his responsibility to keep and he hadn't done so.

"John?" he said, as he approached my table.

"Please sit down," I said, and he did so, across from me. I wanted to dominate and thought back to how easily Onur had accomplished that with me. I emulated the directness and command of the man I'd just been with. I could tell the young man was keyed up, but he didn't slouch in his chair, he leaned forward, toward me on the table, on his elbows and gave me a direct, apologetic look.

"I'm sorry about last night," he said. "I live in a village up near Ephesus—Seluk. There's bus service down here to Izmir. But my bus broke down."