It was eight minutes past five on a balmy summer’s afternoon in Paris when a beautiful voice reached out to me. I had my head in a dumpster as I tried desperately to heave a refuse sack full of fifty empty bottles of bubbly over, up, and in.

‘Spliff?’ the voice enquired. It had a French edge, laced with irreverent, languid overtures, but more than anything its offering carried hope. I was about to turn and reply when the dumpster lid came crashing back down on me, garroting me across the shoulder blades and nearly catapulting me into the stinking depths beneath.

‘I’m not laughing,’ the same French voice insisted, in a tone that suggested otherwise. ‘Are you okay in there?’ 

The desire to retain some semblance of dignity took hold and I began earnestly wrestling with my attacker, flinging the chomping plastic lid upwards before staggering backwards and free.

‘I’m fine,’ I panted, wiping sweat from my brow as I stood, bent double, trying to catch my breath, ‘Thank you for asking.’

I peered across the back alley towards the voice. The sun was getting low and caught my eyes, but I could make out a distinctive silhouette leaning against the wall with one knee cocked. It was the man I’d noticed earlier in the day - the genius who bounce walked on small trampolines.

He was looking at me inquisitively through the fading light and a haze of billowing smoke.

‘You look…how do you say?…Frazzled?’ he offered, bringing a large joint to his lips and drawing heavily on it before exhaling a beautiful plume of grey smoke.

I took stock of myself. I had my hands on my knees, my shirt was hanging out, my tie askew, and sweat was galavanting down my face from my brow. Whereas, the trampoline man looked fresh as a daisy. Yet we’d both spent the day working the floor of the same conference.

‘Here, have some. You earned it,’ he grinned, gesturing with the joint. I nodded and gratefully reached for the doobie.

I took a draw and let the moment consume me. There’s something beautifully disconcerting about the first blunt of the day - of how it partly relaxes and partly anxiety spikes; at least that’s how it is for me. 

The air suddenly felt very warm and sticky. The acrid stench of hashish seemed to be clinging to the breeze. I’d consumed three glasses of champagne late on in the afternoon, mostly to ease the boredom and to somehow maintain an outward persona of giving a shit.

I knew the joint would fuck-whoosh what was already a warm head fuzz, taking to me to a place where wrecked is an hour or so away and for the time being, it’s just that beautiful middle ground where inhibitions evaporate but judgement and integrity haven’t left the building yet. Better known as horny time.

The trampoline man effortlessly small talked. It was mostly shop stuff and establishing each other’s backgrounds. But he’d also drop things into the conversation, like how he’d been watching me, then pause as if he enjoyed leaving the statement hanging, before adding, ‘Because I’m interested in what you do.’ It was faux polite, with an agenda hidden under the asinine shit you offer up when smoking shit with someone you don’t know. 

He seemed like the sort of guy that needed intellectual swordplay to entice his interest, and I delighted in that challenge.

We talked music, a segue prompted by my glaringly obvious admission of being English, complete with ‘don’t hold it against me’ joke. He liked Orbital, he explained, and then made the ‘so maybe not all Englishmen are bad’ joke in riposte. We laughed and I quickly shared that I owned both of Orbital’s albums and that I was a regular partygoer on the underground British rave scene.

‘My name is Pierre,’ the trampoline man immediately responded, as if in that moment I had provided enough proof of cool to warrant further investigation.

‘I’m Tarquin,’ I replied.

‘Un beau nom.’

‘Merci,’ I offered, shrugging bashfully. 

Pierre grinned.

‘You speak French?’

‘Non,’ I answered, only to wiggle my hand, ‘Mais, peut-être.’ We both laughed. Then he rather audaciously reached across and deftly brushed some falling ash from my lapel.

Our eyes met and the glance was held beyond the polite and acceptable. He’s taller than me, I thought, whilst marvelling at his sparkling blue pupils, only by an inch or so, but I liked that. And he had the most exquisite skin you’ve ever seen, so rich and soft.

‘Thank you,’ I gestured, wafting the joint in the direction of my lapel before taking another draw.

‘Maybe I need to tuck you in and fix your tie too. You looked so smart this morning, and now this.’ Pierre feigned a tut and shook his head.

‘…if you want,’ I mumbled and turned my head away whimsically.

‘Oh? I did not expect this response. How interesting.’

I leant back against the wall, looked straight into his eyes and pretended that what was happening was perfectly innocent, all as his hands purposefully fiddled with my tie. Somehow he managed to be gentle, yet sensually firm, as if with each pull of the silk between his large hands he was taking further charge of whatever was occurring between us. And I let him.    

‘This is a first for me,’ I offered, trying to cut through the moment before it ate me.

‘Having another man fix your tie?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Brave boy. But I would sort’ve guessed.’

‘I’m that obvious?’

‘Non, it’s just that I’d assumed you were straight. It’s why I flirted. I like flirting with straight guys.’

‘You’re gay?’ I asked, and immediately felt rather stupid.

Pierre chuckled.

‘Would a straight man have fixed your tie for you?’

‘I don’t know what I am...whether I’m straight, I mean,’ I blurted.

Pierre laughed.

‘I think you are straight and it’s just me who you like to have play with your tie, so actually, I should be very flattered.’

We laughed. His was controlled; mine was diced with deliciously excited anxiety. Pierre finished my tie and nodded appreciably at his own effort. His hand brushed mine. It lingered as his fingers clasped the joint and switched it from my grasp to his. And then he smiled.

‘Don’t worry. You’re in safe hands. I’m good with ties.’

Eight hours earlier

It was somewhere past eight a.m. in the summer of 1994. I was working a conference in Paris for a British based International Coms company.

I’d sort of fallen arse backwards into a sales career after leaving school with no meaningful qualifications and no specific talent, save for a masters in silver-tongued bullshitting. Within a few inglorious months of living on the dole, that talent had honed itself (borne of desperation) and I talked my way into my first job, which in turn helped me land on my feet, gain several promotions and slungshot me to Paris. It would also play a considerable role in getting Pierre to forcibly thrust his fat cock down my throat as he grunted sweet vulgarities in my ear. But more about the George Cinq later.

I’d been chosen to front the stand of the English Coms company that employed me for reasons that would have today’s Twitterati completely losing their shit (granted, it doesn’t take much).     

‘You’re a good looking lad, and you’re charming,’ I was told before we left, ‘I’m putting you on our stand at EfCon, do well for us.’

Stoked.

Company directors could openly admit to picking staff on those merits back then. I’ve no idea what Elisabeth, my female counterpart, was told when she was chosen. Perhaps it was mere coincidence that she was also nineteen years old, slim, and vivaciously beautiful.

One might argue that they did at least go politically correct and pick a boy as well as a girl, but political correctness didn’t exist back then, and the reasons for the gender equality would become more apparent later.

I didn’t care. I was headed for Paris. I had money in my pocket and could afford good suits. Life was exciting.

I noticed Pierre early on. He strode passed our stand as Elisabeth and I were putting up placards. He walked like there were small trampolines under each of his Converse Voltage trainers. Each step was a flamboyant bounce that seemed to create a breeze that caught at the immaculate cut of his baggy slate grey suit.

He caught my attention because it’s not easy to stand out at a convention full of well dressed, successful individuals, but he did so effortlessly. He exuded the sort of verified confidence that only comes from being so good at something that you’re genuinely given license to act however the fuck you want. The laptop he nonchalantly carried under his arm alluded to where his wizardry might lie, at least professionally. His other talents would unravel themselves later.

He spent the majority of his day seated behind his laptop at the stand of a French Coms rival. As I glanced across and watched him kick back, it suddenly seemed a staggering oversight that we hadn’t thought to bring chairs with us.

I guessed that he was about the same age as me, maybe a year older. He had stubble, which I couldn’t have grown in a year, let alone through the course of a day, and olive dark skin that suggested he was mixed race. This was complemented by a very masculine jawline, the sort of prominent cheekbones a catwalk model would seethe over, and cropped afro hair. But what really struck me was his weirdly piercing blue eyes that brooded from darkened eye sockets. Elisabeth remarked on his suit. 

‘I just can’t get with the whole suit but no tie thing,’ she observed, her eyes deliberately glancing at the immaculate blue and cream polka dot silk I wore neatly clasped by a silver pin between the folds of my navy double-breasted, ‘and trainers - with a suit. C’mon. A man should wear brogues,’ she added, doffing her metaphorical hat to my shoes.

‘It’s a geek thing, isn’t it? They’re setting themselves apart. I saw a guy wearing sandals with a three-piece the other day,’ I replied. We laughed. I changed the subject and we moved on to strategically placing products around the stand.

The consensus was that Elisabeth and I would fuck before the two-day convention was finished. There may even have been a sweepstakes going on back at the office in Berkshire. I’d not played the notion down because I recognised that allowing a bunch of middle-aged, unhappily married men to live vicariously through me was good for my promotion prospects.

Elisabeth seemed to be making her intentions clear from the outset, though I’ve no idea whether she actually fancied me, or whether she’d realised that fucking me would enable a bunch of middle-aged, unhappily married men to live vicariously through me, which would be good for her promotion prospects.

The convention opened at nine a.m. and by nine fifty-five I’d had my fill of standing like a cardboard cutout as suited men ambled past our stand offering little more than shamefully leery glances (at Elisabeth) and professional nods (at me).

I popped the first champagne cork about three-and-a-half minutes later. Men swiftly followed. Elisabeth filled glasses and flirted whilst I took names, business cards and worked the potential clients. This is how it was back then. Men wanted a pretty face to speak inappropriately to before talking shop with another human being who happened to have a penis.

I never thought to ask Elisabeth how she felt about her role as disrespected eye candy. Worse, I’m pretty sure I assumed she’d be cool with it. After all, it was a privilege that she’d been chosen by the company to stand and be gawped at whilst I closed deals on products she knew just as much about.

Other than taking an occasional piss and eating a salami baguette for lunch, what I’ve just described is a definitive encapsulation of what it is to host a stand at a convention.

By midday, I wanted to kill myself. At three-fifteen, I suggested we allow ourselves a couple of discreet glasses of champagne. To do anything else would have been cruelty. Having to tidy the stand at end of day felt like the final act of senseless brutality.

But such is the obscurity of life that it happened to be in tidying up and chivalrously offering to take out the rubbish that the dumpster attacked me, and when it did, my fortunes in Paris changed markedly for the better.
 

‘Would you like to come back to my hotel for drinks? I’m at the George Cinq,’ Pierre asked, moments after fixing my tie.

‘You just made my tummy swoon,’ I muttered, painfully embarrassed by my admission and inwardly loving the feeling it invoked. I took a draw of the joint to deflect, and then somehow choked on the smoke. 

I’d never thought about men from a sexual perspective before then. It had always been girls, girls, girls. I was confidently straight - the archetypal player and lad about town. I don’t know why in that moment everything felt so different, but it did, and the unknown of it excited me. I’d always been open-minded and keen to explore things and I wasn’t scared of what I might find. But prior to Pierre, I’d never met a man who’d triggered the longing he somehow managed to find within me.

I finished coughing. Pierre took the dead spliff, dashed it against the pavement and I watched as it disappeared under the sole of his Converse trainer.

‘Meet me out front,’ he said and disappeared back into the conference hall.

I tucked my shirt in, tried to get my shit together and returned to where Elisabeth was waiting at the stand.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ she asked irritably.

‘I just smoked a blunt with that tieless, brogue-free dude we saw this morning.’

‘The trampoline man?’

‘Yeah,’ I grinned.

‘Are you shitting me? Here? Tarquin, fuck, be careful.’

‘It’s cool. He’s cool. Trust me. He’s staying at the George Cinq and he’s invited us for drinks.’

‘The George Cinq? That’s like…’

‘The best hotel in Paris. Yeah,’ I grinned, ‘So we can either go back to the shit palace we’ve been put up in, or see a bit of Parisian culture with a charming Frenchman. You in?’

We took a taxi to the George Cinq.

Elisabeth and Pierre were chatting. But it was all secondary, like background noise to the whirring thoughts being batted about in my mind.

The joint and the champagne had me in a pleasingly spaced-out daze. Half cut, I stared out the cab window and watched the soft blur of buildings and passing Parisian traffic merge into a streaking art deco ensemble that would forever be unique to my own consciousness. Late afternoon had succumbed to early evening. The warm, muggy Parisian night air was rife with anticipation.

A private conversation raged on inside my head.

Pierre’s very good looking.

Wait, what? He’s a guy.

Yeah, so?

But you don’t fancy guys, do you?

I don’t know. Does it matter? Besides, it’s not about him being a guy or a girl. He’s got a vibe. He’s so confident. Look at the way he openly checks me out with his eyes. Is he? Isn’t he? Elisabeth doesn’t seem to have noticed. So maybe he isn’t. He definitely was earlier, though. Did I imagine that whole tie thing? No, that was definitely flirty. It’s like he enjoys testing me. He’s getting off on smashing up my comfort zone.

He’s manipulative.

You don’t know that. Just because he’s more experienced in his sexuality than you doesn’t make him manipulative.

Yes! But he’s definitely toying with you for his own pleasure. You freakin' like that?

Yes, I do. I know, it’s probably weird. It’s like I’m not the hunter this time. I’m the hunted, and it’s exciting me. This feels new.

No shit!

He’s put me in a space I’ve never been before. And besides, I’m in France. Nobody will ever know anyway.

That’s your justification for this?

Well, yeah.

What if Elisabeth says something?

Oh fuck. That would be career-ending. Maybe I should forget the whole thing. I probably imagined it all anyway.

When we reached the George Cinq, I’d decided it would be better for all concerned if I just fucked Elisabeth instead. It’s what the directors and senior male staff back home had expected of me, and I’d no business veering from the tried and tested straight and narrow.

We ordered a bottle of red in the hotel bar, the sort that costs more than the gross national product of most African countries. Pierre said it was fine, that he’d pay.

At some point between reaching the bar and the second bottle of insanely good red, I’d decided that actually I didn’t want to go to bed with Elisabeth at all, and that actually what I truly wanted was to be Pierre’s fuck toy. The wine, the atmosphere, the earlier joint - it all had me feeling deliciously horny.

When Elisabeth excused herself to use the ladies' room, Pierre wasted little time in leaning in to me and squeezing my leg under the table.

‘When she gets back, we will both explain that we need to piss, okay?’ he explained.

I nodded.

‘And then you will go into the cubicle, I will follow. Understand?’

I nodded a second time, whilst staring doe-eyed into Pierre’s bloodshot blue eyes. He looked ecstatically off his face and I sensed he felt as horny as I did. My stomach churned. Suddenly it felt very real. The tease had diminished and expectation was pushing through in its place. It felt nerve-wracking good.

We smoked half a Gauloises once Elisabeth returned, to make things seem normal, and then I suggested I needed a wee. Pierre said he did too, and I remarked on how fortuitous that was - ‘You can show me where the toilets are, then.’ And with that, we climbed from the table and left Elisabeth tipsily trying to read Le Monde.

My first thought on pushing through the main toilet door was that the decor of the George Cinq’s toilets shamed my entire apartment. It was also larger. There was a majesty and a regality, and it didn’t even stink.

I chose the penultimate stall. I don’t know why, and instinctively dropped to my knees as the cubicle door slammed closed behind us. I’d have begged to be in that position, in that moment, with Pierre, if he’d expected it of me.

‘You’re such a beautiful boy,’ he grunted, leaning back against the stall door with his legs splayed. The silver buckle of his belt seemed to shimmer at me. I reached for the dark leather, pulled it through the silver loop, unclasped the buckle and somehow pushed his trouser button back through its hole with desperate, trembling fingers. Then came the zip; the sound seemed to echo around the bathroom with a noisy illumination of my sordid desires. Pierre’s grey suit trousers flared open. I tugged them down to his ankles.

Everything was a blur. Heart racing, mouth dry, hard to breathe, lustful excitement pulsating through me like nothing I’d known before. If I’d been less inebriated, I’d have cum in my pants just from laying eyes on the size of the bulge pushing expectantly at the front of his black Gucci briefs. My mind suddenly flashed a thought of how disappointed he might be if he ever saw my paltry five inches, but somehow that only upped the elation I felt. To be so inferior to his dominance felt intoxicating.

I was about to unpack my prize when Pierre’s hands suddenly reached down and cupped the back of my head, gently drawing me in until my cheek lay pressed against his muscular inner thigh with my mouth and nose pushed up against the soft, warm material that formed the only remaining barrier between my skin and his cock. The way he held me so tightly felt almost loving. I was about to sigh with ecstasy when I looked up at him and he calmly pressed a finger to his lips.

'Sssssh.'

Suddenly I was aware of voices, at least two men, conversing in French with a rat-a-tat speed that made it impossible for me to glean even a couple of words from what they were saying. My stomach lurched and I felt painfully vulnerable. This is it, my mind screamed, you’ve done it this time!

The voices seemed to grow more abrasive. I felt certain that it was two hotel security staff discussing how to crash through the cubicle door. I’d be arrested for indecency, plastered over the front pages of every British red top, sacked from my high-flying job and disowned by my mother. And all because I wanted to know what it felt like to be a man’s bitch. Idiot!

But then a tap started to gush water, a hand dryer whirred into life, and footsteps clicked back across the tiled floor, fading away as they went, culminating in a door closing with a thud. 

Silence.

I looked up at Pierre. He nodded authoritatively, and in an instant, I was so completely over the worry of a life-ending humiliation and instead returned my earnest attentions to what was expected of me.

My fingers ducked under the elastic tops of Pierre’s briefs. I pulled at the material and dragged the last barrier down and away. Eight inches of thick, dark-skinned, uncut, veiny masculine meat sprung forth and twitched mouthwateringly in front of my face.

I groaned. The sight alone had me pulsating with excitement. Two huge balls hung low from a bulbous sack and my left hand reached up and instinctively cupped them. The weight had me groaning. My right hand took hold of Pierre’s mammoth manhood and keenly pulled back his foreskin. The most beautiful, pulsating, dark head pushed keenly forward. Pre-cum glistened, seeping from the large slit sitting proudly atop Pierre’s masterpiece of a cock. I licked, keenly sweeping up the pre-cum onto my tongue, and then kissed the tip, softly, lovingly, adoringly.

Then my tongue, my mouth and my focus moved to the shaft, working my way down the stem with intermittent swirls of my tongue and passionate pecks. It felt so important to show gratitude towards the man who had me on my knees and to show him I was worthy of that place, that I craved being there, to tend to his needs and his stunningly beautiful cock.

I licked and cajoled every inch of his pulsating, thick trunk but could hold out no longer and moved back to his tip. I desperately wanted him in my mouth and immediately sunk down on his length, taking him to the back of my throat. I could feel him growing inside me, somehow getting even thicker and even longer.

I could hear Pierre talking to me, calling me his little bitch, telling me how proud of me he was and that he was going to fuck my mouth and cum down my throat because that’s what I deserved. I groaned as I worked him back and forth in my mouth, keenly embracing each swollen increase in size my efforts produced.

Pierre’s words resonated around me as I sucked, licked and kissed his huge cock. ‘This is where you belong…on your knees…for me…this is what you’ve always truly wanted, isn’t it...?’

I nodded, groaned, sucked and licked him even more passionately, only releasing his massive girth from my mouth to suck and lick his balls before returning to the throbbing trunk of manhood waiting for my attention. And as my intensity increased, I felt Pierre’s hands start to grip the back of my head.

At first, it was gentle hip thrusts moving in time to my bobbing head action, then the thrusts increased, and as his hands tightened around the back of my head he stepped forward and started to thrust more vigorously. I could feel his cock pushing at the back of my throat as his hips pushed harder and deeper and his hands pulled me closer and closer.

I started to choke on his cock, which only excited him further. Tears began streaming down my face. ‘Cry for me,’ he grunted, forcibly fucking my mouth back and forth, harder and harder and harder, ‘show me your tears of joy.’

I gagged, wept, and desperately fought to handle his expectations. Just as I thought I might involuntarily choke up lunchtime’s baguette, he pulled out and tugged at the hair he’d grasped on the back of my head, forcing me to stare up at him as his cock violently slapped my cheeks. I was delirious, revelling in each blow from his thick, warm trunk. Saliva streamed from my mouth and swung from my chin, and I fought for every precious breath of air I could muster. 

And then we began again, his cock suddenly engulfing my mouth, breath stolen away, gagging reflex choking me up and more tears streaming down my face. Four, five, six more pounding thrusts, each one more unrelenting than the last.

Then there was a twitch, his hands squeezed tighter to my head and Pierre’s eyes seemed to almost roll into the back of his head. Falling forward, his thrusts slowed and suddenly I felt myself choking on wave after wave of hot, slithery, sour ejaculation. I moaned as loud as I could. I wanted him to hear how much it meant to me that he was cumming in my mouth. I swallowed every drop and then watched him pull free, gasping.

‘That was beautiful,’ he grunted, ‘You’re beautiful.’

‘I never want this to end,’ I panted.

The sentiment seemed rational at the time, despite the reality that I would fly back to the UK just a day later.

When we returned to the table, Elisabeth was being hit on by a wealthy Parisian businessman. That, and the wine, seemed to have dulled her sense of time. She never asked why we’d been so long. About an hour later she was pleading with me not to tell anyone back at the office that she was disappearing into the night with the pinstriped silverback.

‘Will you be alright here?’ she asked, with genuine concern, ‘I feel like I’m leaving you in the lurch. Will you be okay to get back to our hotel?’

I nodded and muttered something about having a couple more glasses with Pierre and then I’d jump in a taxi. Elisabeth ignored me and began hastily scribbling the name of our hotel on the back of her sugar daddy’s business card. I remember watching her brutalising the nib of his Montblanc fountain pain and thinking how tolerant men can be towards women when they want to fuck them.

‘I know what you’re like. You’ll have forgotten the bloody hotel’s name and I can’t have you walking the streets lost, can I?’ she muttered, thrusting the business card into my palm and planting a huge puckered kiss on my lips.

Then she flounced off, miraculously glamorously for two bottles of rouge in heels, occasionally turning back and checking ‘You sure you’ll be alright?’ as the silverback encouraged her towards the hotel’s door and out into the night.

Pierre turned and smiled at me.

‘Would you like to spend the night with me?’ he asked.