This is the account of an incident that occurred to my then 24-year-old uncle, Mike, late in May, in London. Mike and his fiancΓ©e, Alice, are principals in the series Alice, My Uncle and Me, and Cross-Country with My Uncle.
He got on at the Knightsbridge tube station. He was remarkably good looking, after the English fashion. Trim, close to six feet, probably about 25, with light brown hair neatly cut but falling onto his forehead, with medium-blue somewhat deepset eyes. His Lauren shirt was rolled up just above his elbows, displaying powerful-looking forearms, covered with coppery-colored hair, similar in color to the hair that his open collar revealed.
On the London Underground trains, if you don't have a tabloid to read, your other choice is to gaze at your fellow travelers: It's both convenient and, for a people as typically reserved as the English, surprisingly acceptable, at least on the Underground. As soon as he boarded, his eye caught my young uncle, Mike.
Mike was in town for a week's consultation with a client of his California-based software company. His fiancΓ©e, Alice, had graduated from Stanford less than two weeks earlier, and they were able to mix pleasure with their business. Unfortunately, today Alice had a temporary indisposition and was sleeping it off in their convenient and luxurious Bloomsbury hotel, and so Mike was on his own today. It was the late spring Bank Holiday, and the Lincoln's Inn law chambers for whom he was consulting were closed.
When in the clients' chambers, Mike wore a well-cut Saville Row suit; but today he was wearing his "English disguise." It was a quite close-fitting white English football fan's shirt, with the escutcheon of England Ancient over his heart (gules three lions passant guardant or), and across his back and emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders, the great red Cross of Saint George. He wore the casual shorts then current in England, and Nike 'trainers' rather more subdued than the styles worn in the U. S., with the very low-cut socks that hardly show above the shoes' uppers.
He only wanted to blend in, but for a man like Mike, this was an impossibility. He turned heads everywhere he went. Six feet tall, with a true athlete's build, he had large and powerful arms, broad shoulders, and his torso narrowed to a boyish waist. The casual shorts could not disguise his fine butt, nor his impressive thighs. His costume displayed both his forearms and his lower legs, thickly garnished with golden sun-bleached crisp hair, and his chest hair peeked over even the high round collar of the Team England shirt. With medium blond, somewhat curly hair, striking azure eyes, a square chin and killer dimples, he was, quite frankly a very strikingly beautiful man.
Unlike many men, even the sexiest, who under ordinary circumstances carry their penises in a reduced and diminished state, so that the process of erection achieves what might appear to be an unlikely miracle, Mike's normally bore his beautiful penis rather full and fat, even under the most relaxed circumstances. When he wore jeans, for instance, the bulge at his crotch was inevitably prominent and quite manifest. Even when he wore looser clothing, anyone whose eyes dwelt upon his crotch - and over the years the number of those who had was phenomenal, in bars, classrooms, on the street, in laboratories or offices! - could discern vividly with no difficulty that Mike was very impressively endowed, something that merely amplified the aura of intense masculinity that Mike effortlessly and inevitably radiated, and completed the image of the total stud.
Mike was not unaware of the reaction that his looks generated in others, but, strange to say, very beautiful men are in a no-win situation. If one is diffident and reserved, there is always the risk of giving the impression of arrogance; on the other hand if one is affable and approachable to strangers, then one can present an unwanted air of noblesse oblige, of condescension to 'ordinary' folk. Mike always opted for the latter course, however, and easily met everyone's eyes, returned every smile, and generally tried to ignore the impact that his striking looks inevitably made upon others, as impossible as this was.
The handsome man who got on the train at Knightsbridge studied my uncle almost from the moment the train doors opened. He was standing only about three feet away. Mike returned his gaze with an occasional neutral amiable glance, and by the Green Park station, the stranger had engaged him in casual conversation: the excellent weather, long-running plays in the West End, etc.
Mike made ready to leave the train at Leicester Square, and as he left the handsome stranger also stepped from the car. "Fancy a drop of beer, would you? I know a quite nice place near here."
Since Mike really had little particularly to do - he had just planned to walk the rest of the way through Covent Garden on his way back to his hotel, maybe killing some time watching the street performers - he saw no reason not to accept the offer. It was about 2.15 in the afternoon. The young man introduced himself as "Piers," and led my young uncle to a somewhat nondescript bar in Old Compton Street, whose name I will not report here. They took a small table overlooking the street, and Piers ordered a pint of Fullers for each of them. Piers said, "Mike, I have something of a proposition for you; something that may well interest you; something that could be both profitable and pleasurable; something for which in my professional judgment you'd be a natural." Mike agreeably bid him to continue, curious about what Piers had in mind.