One of my colleagues in the English department was born and raised in Berlin. When I told him I was going to spend a few weeks in Mannheim trying to persuade Dixon Weatherby to share his life story with me, rather than express doubts that I would ever be able to connect with the stubbornly reclusive writer, he laughed and said, “Mannheim? Don’t blink, you’ll miss it.” He was right. The city has a population of over three-hundred thousand, and though many of its imposing granite and limestone Baroque buildings predate the seventeenth century, even the gay travel guide I toted in my backpack had little to recommend in the city. The only two places for gays to hang out were a bar called Connexion and a bathhouse.
After my unsuccessful first attempt to arrange a meeting with Dixon Weatherby, I went back to my cramped studio apartment near the Luisenpark, wrote in my diary and listened to Rosetta Stone, but I couldn’t concentrate. Attempting to study German only made me think of the officer on the tram and how the situation both demeaned and aroused me. Though the officer’s caustic behavior enraged me, I couldn’t deny how turned on I was by him. If ever a body was made for fucking, it was his. I fantasized about him stomping into the studio and pinning me down on the bed, his massive body slamming against me while his long, fat dick drilled my asshole. I took the travel-sized bottle of lube from beside my bed, slicked up my palm and let my hand do what the officer couldn’t. I tugged and squeezed all nine hard inches of my cock, mixing my precome with the lube so my dick would be slicker. The more I fantasized about the officer cursing me out in German while he raped my ass from behind, the more furiously I stroked my hard-on, tightening my hand, twisting and flicking my dick from root to tip. My butt bounced on the sweat-soaked sheets. I imagined the officer rolling me onto my back and plunging every stiff inch of his love muscle into my quivering ass while I locked my thighs around him tightly and held on to his oversized shoulders. My hips bounced off the mattress, my balls jumped toward my pelvis, and a fountain of come shot into the air, glazing my stomach. Released, I fell into a nap, waking just as twilight was darkening to night. I dined on schnitzel at a small restaurant around the corner, then walked to Connexion.
What the travel guide described as a bar was actually an upscale coffee shop that also served beer and other alcoholic beverages. Furnished as it was with polished mahogany tables and chairs and high stools at the bar, I was more likely to meet a grad student studying Hegel than the brick-house muscle daddies I had hoped to find there. Around fifteen men, most of them beanpoles in skinny jeans and polo shirts, sat around smoking and drinking lager. When I, the only black man in the place, walked in, they abandoned their conversations and watched me as I picked up a bar magazine from a rack by the door and took a seat the bar. A pulsating remix of Lady Gaga songs played through the speakers and the murmur of casual conversation gradually increased.
The bartender, a scrawny sweet-faced guy with twinkling eyes and a gauge in each ear, gave me a quick nod. I ordered a lager, a Konig; he set a foamy pilsner glass in front of me. I took one sip and scrunched up my face.
The bartender chuckled. “You don’t like this beer?”
I was grateful he spoke English. “It’s not my favorite.” I wiped my mouth with the side of my hand.
A husky voice from behind said, “You should try a radler. It’s sweeter.”
I turned and came face-to-face with the Fahrkartenkontrolluer from that morning. He was wearing a red muscle T-shirt, snug jeans that showed off his meaty thighs and butt, white and red Pumas and a leather wristband. His shiny blond hair was short and wavy. Since our interaction earlier that day, he had grown a five o’clock shadow. Even in casual clothes he appeared menacing, as likely to crack my windpipe as give me a firm handshake.
“A radler?” I asked with a sneer, still nursing my anger from the incident on the tram. “Is that another lager?”
“Lager with Sprite.” He looked past me to the bartender and said, “Bilden Sie es zwei,” before sitting on the stool beside me and propping his elbows on the bar, flexing football-sized biceps.
The bartender mixed the radlers and set them in front of us on green felt pads.
As I reached for my glass, the officer gently put his hand on my wrist. “We must have a toast first.” He lifted his glass. “Willkommen nach Deutschland.”
“Danke,” I said, grudgingly and took a sip. He was right, the radler was sweet.
“Good?” the bartender asked.
I nodded and the bartender waited on a customer at the other end of the bar.
I thought about ignoring the officer and moving, but I didn’t want him to know how irritated I was. Since he had already paid for my drink abandoning him would have been rude, and in spite of our earlier confrontation I was still fiercely attracted to him. He was the hottest man in the bar by far; my dick started to get hard imagining what he packed in those tight jeans.
“So what do you do when you aren’t harassing foreigners on the tram?”
He chuckled. I was glad to see he had a sense of humor. “I don’t think I was harassing you. I had a job to do; you violated the rules.”
I tried to be nice but I could feel anger bubbling within me. “I wasn’t lying. I bought a ticket.”
“And where was that phantom ticket, my friend? Hmm? I never saw it.”
He was a smug bastard. But the image of him naked in boots and a cock ring formed in my mind again.
“I am Rolf,” he said.
“Vaughn.”
His hand was thick and strong, not like my slim, artistic hand, which he squeezed tightly, establishing himself as the alpha male. Rolf was being congenial now: the muscles in his face softened and his eyes had lost their steely gaze. He behaved like two completely different men—a burly asshole in the morning and a flirtatious muscle stud at night.
He gulped his radler then asked, “What has brought you to Mannheim, Vaughn? Military work?”
“I’m a professor in the U.S., and I came here to locate an expatriate writer. I was on my way to see his former editor when you gave me that undeserved ticket.”
“What does this man write?” he asked before he took another drink.
“Fiction. He published three novels back in the 1980s.”
Rolf chuckled and wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “I’m sorry. I don’t see much point in making up stories.”
His laugh faded quickly after he looked at my face.
“I apologize if I have offended you.”
“We just can’t seem to get off to a good start, can we?” I sipped my radler and thought about going back to my apartment.
Rolf scratched his scruffy chin. “He must be a very important writer if you are leaving your work at university.”
“Dixon Weatherby. He’s a black gay writer. Not as famous as James Baldwin but just as influential.”
“I am sure you will find him. There are many gay black men in Deutschland, though none quite as handsome as you.” He winked at me and took another drink.
The bar had become crowded and noisy. Rolf patted me on the back and said, “Finish your drink. We will take a walk.” The timbre of his voice lowered under the weight of furtive plans I could only guess at. He squeezed my thigh, and the tiny lines around his eyes arched.
A few minutes later Rolf and I were strolling down the dark streets of Mannheim. I zipped up my jacket and walked with my hands deep in my pockets. Rolf’s bullet-sized nipples grew erect beneath his tight shirt. We made our way along the dark avenues past closed flower shops, cafés, produce stands and Apothekes. The facades of the Gothic buildings looked like ogres grimacing in their sleep. We passed the apartment building where I stayed and Rolf pointed out places of interest that I should see, but I hardly heard him. My attention was focused on his bodybuilder’s physique. He was a walking stack of hefty, robust muscle, and as we walked down the sidewalk an occasional passerby gave him an incredulous wide-eyed stare—and his crotch was just as humpy as the rest of him. I imagined a flaccid cock the size of a bratwurst coiled inside of those jeans, straining against the rough, unyielding denim, eager for my plump moist lips and wide mouth.