Karl pulled himself up to a sitting position against the headboard of the bed, pulled the used condom off his cock, tossed it in the vicinity of the wastebasket, and reached for the pack of cigarettes on the nightstand. Lighting up and blowing smoke at the ceiling, he watched as the rent boy came out of the bathroom and padded, unselfconsciously around the sparsely furnished room of the Axelhaus fleabag on Lietzenburger Strasse in the center of Berlin's Schöneberg gay district.
Dirk's body was slight, thin, but not emaciated, more lithe, Karl guessed, and short. More boyish than masculine. The balls were tight to his body, round, distinct, and the cock was small, what some would call pert. He was a platinum blond, which probably came from a bottle, but he had done the pubes as well, which were trimmed to a close-cropped V. He had piercings—a ball in his tongue and small rings, one in his left nipple, one in his navel, and one Karl had found under Dirk's balls that had elicited a very interesting Energizer Bunny effect in Dirk when Karl had gently pulled it with his teeth. There was, as far as Karl had determined, only the one tattoo, on the young man's lower right belly: the word, "baby," which, when he'd asked, Dirk had said, "As in your."
And that was pretty much what Karl saw in Dirk that would turn a lot of men on. Someone willing to be their baby. Boyish, without being underage, compliant, experienced, and with a hole you could drive a truck into. He'd be quite an asset if he could be trained.
Karl sat and puffed as he watched Dirk dress, standing near the bed, not the least bit shy. He was dressing in leathers, as Karl had requested, in consideration for the operation at hand. And he had managed a sexy and vulnerable look with it. Black leather, form-fitting pants, with zipper down the butt crack as well as in front and also down the calves, and a half-length black leather vest that was held together, not fully covering his chest, though, with black lacings. The vest exposed his navel and that "baby" tattoo. Cute little black boots.
As Dirk was zipping up in all directions, Karl repeated the directions for the third time. "You remember where to pick it up—the Hengst Club on Kleistrasse in forty-five minutes. He'll proposition you and give you an envelope, and then you'll deliver it to the man stopping at the park bench in Volkspark and propositioning you. Then you're to be back here at 5:00 p.m. to report to me. Are you sure you have that?"
"Yes, yes."
Karl reached for his wallet on the nightstand and took out a wad of Euros. "This should cover it all. Don't ask either of the men for money. Do the switch and move on afterward. Got that?"
"Yes," Dirk said. He hesitated, not knowing if the man would want a kiss or a compliment on his prowess before he left. This wasn't a usual trick. He hadn't even been told Karl would fuck him. He thought he'd just be getting the instructions. No matter, though. He decided a kiss wasn't needed and turned and left the room. Karl didn't call after him. He was busy looking for his cell phone.
"Lars," he said into the phone after he'd punched the numbers, "OK, it's all set up."
"I still just don't know," the man at the other end of the line said. "I'm still not sure of this. The trouble with this young man of yours—"
"It will work fine, Lars."
"You remembered to tell him the man passing on the envelope would be Middle Eastern, didn't you?—but not specifically Iranian."
"Yes, of course," Karl answered. But he'd given a quick assurance on that that he wasn't sure about. Had he actually told Dirk that? He couldn't remember.
"And there's something off with your whole scenario. A rent boy and the gay district."
"We discussed this. It's the perfect cover."
"But you didn't tell him to actually have sex with his contacts, did you?"
"No, of course not." And this Karl was certain of. He hadn't said anything at all to Dirk about having sex with either the pick up or the drop off. He'd just said the men would proposition him, not actually demand to carry through with the sex. It was just so they'd fit in with the surroundings.
He had a little twinge about that, though. He'd been told to give Dirk instructions; he hadn't been told to fuck him. But Dirk was such a sweet little piece. Karl hadn't been able to resist. The young man had been so eager to please. And he
had
pleased Karl. Such a soft mouth.
Down at the entrance to the hotel, a beefy hand reached out and roughly pulled Dirk into the manager's office. The heavy-set man gathered Dirk in close to his body and glared down into the young man's face.
"You can't just do tricks here and not give me a cut," he said. "What kind of a hotel do you think this is?"
Both of them knew what kind of hotel this was. "It wasn't really a trick—well, not completely a trick. The man upstairs should have taken care of you."
"I don't work with 'the men upstairs,'" the man growled. Dirk turned his head away from the assault of the beer breath. "I work with the rent boys. So, are you going to work with me?"
Dirk didn't have time to haggle and he was a bit upset that he'd said that it hadn't been the usual trick upstairs. He'd been told in no uncertain terms that this all was hush hush and in service to the country. He docilely let the man bend him over the desk, chuckle at finding there was a convenient zipper down his butt crack, and take his cut out in a quick butt fuck.
* * * *
The club named Hengst, German for "Stallion," on Kleistrasse, was just about as raunchy, all-out-there gay leather as you could find in Berlin. No doubt Karl chose it with the idea that the thoughts and attention of any men there would be as far away from espionage as one could possibly get. To Dirk, though, it was eye-popping opportunity.
Dirk felt suddenly sexy and as if he'd fallen into a candy store as soon as he had entered Hengst. He'd never been here before. He'd never realized that the gay scene could be so open and hedonist even in Berlin. The place was dimly lit and smoke-filled. It wasn't crowded, but those who were here were really into the atmosphere—and into what was happening on the small stage at the other end of the room from the bar and down the shallow-stepped tiers.
Dirk backed up to the bar as he looked out over the crowd for his possible connection and was getting an overhead view of the stage action. And what was happening there was riveting. A young man, pretty much of the same type as Dirk himself, was playing a pole, Roman motif. He was wearing a short skirt and laced up gold sandals and had gold bands around his biceps and his forehead. Standing on either side of him as he worked on the pole were two bulky gladiators. In short order, as Dirk's time at the bar spun out, the three men were on a couch down there, with the pole dancer in the middle taking the cocks of the two gladiators in a shared hole.
The clientele was already pretty much ahead of the entertainment when Dirk arrived. Most of the tables on the tiers banking down to the stage were occupied by shadowy figures in various stages of copulation. The only table with only a single occupant was taken by a swarthy-looking, thin man, whose eyes lighted on Dirk as soon as the young man entered the room.
