Bought with a Tux

I assumed that Christmas of 1977 was going to be a bust for me anyway, so when the Bangkok office chief asked for a volunteer to go on temporary duty—TDY—to Tokyo over the Christmas and New Year's holiday to cover for the leaves of the bureau chief and deputy there, I said, "Why not?" My family was flying back to the States for December because my wife insisted that the children shouldn't miss out by never having seen snow.

I decided it would be just as well if I wasn't in Bangkok alone for the last two weeks in December anyway. I was becoming jaded and obsessive enough about the wild male-male sex life I'd fallen into with my family nearby. Who knows how I'd survive if I was in the city of sin and "anything goes" all by myself for an extended time? I was looking at my thirtieth birthday eight months hence, and I'd been finding myself overindulging in the sex already, having found the man sex only recently and fearing that I didn't have much time left to "experience it all."

I'd heard that Tokyo was straitlaced and steady—glittery and provocative on the outside, but dull and staid right under the surface. After a few days there, though—alone and just going back and forth between my digs at the New Japan Hotel in Akasaka and the office in the Old Manchurian Railway Building—I was getting itchy and randy and was beginning to feel oh so sorry for myself.

After closing down the office on Christmas Eve, I found myself walking the streets of the Akasaka entertainment district, not wanting to go back to my hotel. The New Japan was considered the epitome of innovative hotel accommodation for business travelers at the time. The rooms were small, but included everything a visitor to Tokyo could want. This was accomplished by having the entire interior of the room outfitted with one, continuous, swirl of plastic modular unit. This concept came back to bite the designers in the posterior five years after I stayed there when the hotel went up in flames, killing thirty-two hotel guests who couldn't get out of their oh-so-snug flaming and melting environment.

A Christmas Eve stroll through the entertainment district was more depressing than uplifting. The city was swathed in the tackiest of Christmas decorations. The spirit was there, but the understanding wasn't. The Japanese, few of whom were either Christians or Westernized at that time, hadn't quite caught onto what the season was all about—or maybe they had caught on too well. It was highly commercialized, blatantly "buy me"—and the more garish and flimsy the better. There were the days when "Made in Japan" was just recovering from drawing sniggers and comedians' jokes.

I found myself drifting into a small bar in the basement of a high-rise office building for just one drink and a bit of warmth. It had been threatening snow since I'd arrived in Tokyo, but nothing in that way had happened yet. Christmas wouldn't be a holiday for me here, so I couldn't get drunk. Our offices were open every day of the year. Christmas Day would just be another working day with all of the American staff off on vacation and me left to smile, bob my head, and give little bows to the Japanese staff, trying more to stay out of their way and to try not to explode the coffee and tea pots that I couldn't figure out how to use.

At least the bureau deputy chief would be back on duty on the 26th to give me two days off before he took leave again.

The bar was dark and smoke-filled, with only the backlit bar, painted in luminous red, distinctive when I entered the room. That was OK with me. It was only the bar I was interested in. I mounted a stool at the far end of the bar and ordered a scotch on the rocks.

When the bartender delivered it, he asked me in broken English, after his German didn't work (are all Nordic blonds assumed to be German?), "New to this territory?"

Somewhat perplexed, I answered, "Just in Tokyo for a short time."

The bartender, wearing no shirt, just a vest, and quite a display of colorful tattoos in some sort of swirling Oriental motif, smiled, winked at me, and moved back down toward the other end of the bar to freshen the drinks of two young Japanese men who had their heads together.

I was halfway to the bottom of the glass, nursing it but contemplating having another one, when a deep voice cut through my glooming thoughts from my left-hand side. "You are about finished with your drink. May I buy you another?"

I turned toward the sound of the voice, the words spoken in English with pure diction that told me immediately that it wouldn't be an American. I found I was looking at a handsome Japanese man in a well-tailored navy-blue pinstripe suit of obviously expensive material. He was tall for a Japanese—at least the ones I'd met—and muscular, but slim waisted. He wore the suit well—casual elegance. He appeared to be maybe three or four years younger than I was. Wavy dark hair and an easy smile. In Bangkok, if he'd been after a hookup with me, he would have gotten one.

"If you wish," I answered him. I drained my glass and lifted it so that the bartender could see that I was ready for a refill. The Japanese man ordered a scotch too, and I smiled when he ordered a brand much better and more expensive than I had. When the drinks came, though, mine obviously was watered down—which should have given me a clue faster than it did. I hadn't been in the sex-for-pay scene in Bangkok, though.

The young man didn't sit on the stool beside me but, rather, sidled up to the bar next to me, his side to the rest of the room, facing me.

"You have no engagement for Christmas Eve?" he asked.

"No," I answered. "Just this one drink and then back to where I'm staying."

"And tomorrow. Christmas Day. Are you engaged then?"

"Just during the day," I said. "Work. It's a dull Christmas for me, I'm afraid."

"It needn't be," he said. I had taken a cigarette out of pack I had laying on the bar top, and he smoothly pulled a lighter from his pocket and flicked a flame for me. I reached over and held his hand steady while I leaned down into the light. When he closed the lighter, his hand came down to my hip, still holding the lighter. It all seemed to be such a natural movement, but my antenna went up, and I realized that he was trying to make me.

Maybe there was some hope for Christmas after all, I thought.

"It needn't be dull," he repeated. "My name is Riyoshi. Riyoshi Saito. I represent Mr. Tanaka. He is interested in buying some of your time."

That confused me. Buying my time. Representing someone else. "Mr. Tanaka?" I asked, not bothering to conceal my confusion.

Saito smiled. "Yes. Mr. Tanaka. Sadao Tanaka is sitting at the table over there. He finds you attractive and would like to buy some of your time. Not with money, of course. That is illegal, even in here. But with a present, one that you can use. It's Christmas after all; nothing illegal about the two of you exchanging presents to mark the day."

"Mr. Tanaka wants to buy my time?" I asked, I looked over at the table Saito had gestured toward, where there was a late-middle-aged man, elegantly dressed, but more the size of a Japanese man that I envisioned the race to be. He was sitting sideways to the table, legs spread, bent forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands resting on the head of a cane propped on the floor between his feet. He was smiling at me and nodding his head.

"Yes. Do you own a tuxedo? Mr. Tanaka would like to take you to the theater tomorrow evening and engage you for the night."

Then it dawned on me—even the initial question the bartender had asked me and the hooded look he'd given me before moving down the bar. I was sitting on the stool where the male prostitutes sat to drum up business. I was being taken for a male whore, plying my trade in this bar, which obviously was a gay bar.

I almost laughed out loud. I had obliquely hinted for days around the office for information on where the gay bars were within walking distance of the office and my hotel and no one had known what I was asking—or they had pretended not to understand. And the first bar I just drifted into because it was there and I was thirsty and feeling sorry for myself was a gay bar.

I had been mistaken for a male whore—evidenced by my watered down drink. The bar was taking its fee off the top, charging Saito for expensive scotch but not giving me full measure. And this Tanaka person wanted to buy my body for Christmas. Well, why the hell not? I thought—although I'd much prefer going with this handsome Saito guy than the old guy sitting over at the table. But then, maybe it could be a two for one.

"I'm afraid I don't have a tux in Tokyo with me," I answered. And indeed I didn't. There had seemed no need to bring one if my time was going to be taken up with babysitting an office.

"Well, then, perhaps that could be the exchange for using your . . . time," Saito said in the smooth-as-silk voice of his. "We could use just a bit of your time this evening getting you measured for a tuxedo—of the best material and cut, I can assure you. You could wear it for Mr. Tanaka tomorrow, and then you could keep it. Mr. Tanaka would give you a Christmas gift and you would give him one in return."

Why the hell not? I thought. But what I said was, "Yes, that would be acceptable."

I didn't see a decent suit being whipped up overnight, but a sexual adventure—even with an elderly pip-squeak of a man—would be more interesting than the alternatives I could see.

* * * *

I had no idea that Saito wasn't shitting me about getting measured on Christmas Eve evening for a tux to wear on Christmas day, but, sure enough, a grossly hunched-over old man was opening a tailor shop on a narrow street in Roppongi, off the main drag of nightclubs but still in the district of Mr. Tanaka's apartment house, when we pulled up outside.

There had been a large, black Cressida sedan waiting at the curb when we left the bar. Cressida at the time was the top of the Toyota line and the interior approached that of a limousine. Saito sat in front with the chauffeur, while I sat in back with Tanaka. I expected some hanky-panky as we drove, and the older man did draw close to me and give me a feel here and there to get the measure of my musculature and package, but then he sat back into his seat and nodded to the rearview mirror, where I could see Saito's eyes reflected.

I guess I passed muster, as the sedan drove on without burping me out onto the sidewalk, leaving Tanaka off in front of a high-rise building, where he must have been known and revered from the immediate appearance of two doormen to help him out of the car and into the building.

The Cressida continued on to the tailor shop, which obviously was open only for our needs. I gave Saito a quizzical look when we entered the shop and stood there as the gnarled little man bustled around, turning enough lights on to illuminate his work area. Saito shrugged and said, "Mr. Tanaka owns many businesses."

It was a miracle—and real entertainment; I can even say making this Christmas Eve special—what the hunched-over little man could do in an hour of measuring; free-hand cutting of top-quality, light-weight wool gabardine fabric on a large wooden table; and pinning of slabs of material to my frame as I stood, legs spread and arms held out full length. Throughout, Riyoshi Saito stood off to the side, a slight smile on his face, watching me.

I watched him too. This little adventure would be extra special, I thought, if it was Saito who was buying my Christmas and not Mr. Tanaka, no matter how generous the old man was. I could tell from watching Saito watching me, that he was as interested in me as I was in him.

Afterward he asked me, "Have you eaten?" and when I said I hadn't had my evening meal, he took to me a noodle restaurant—more of a sidewalk stand than a restaurant—where we sat on stools right on the sidewalk at a counter in front of a store front and ate ramen noodles and drank sake. We quickly found common ground on admiring and collecting Japanese woodblock prints of the early twentieth-century Shin-hanga period, and he told me of his collection and I told him of mine. Art work aside, I was aching to show him "mine" and to get the measure of "his," and I had the feeling from his brief touching of my arm with his fingers and embarrassed drawing away that he felt the same. But he made no overtures, and after the meal was over, he remained on the sidewalk and let the chauffeur drive me back to the New Japan.

"I will come to your hotel with the finished tuxedo at 6:30 in the evening tomorrow," he told me in parting. "Mr. Tanaka will take you to the theater and then dinner. And then afterward . . . have you experienced the Japanese art of Beautiful Bondage?"

"No I haven't," I answered.

"Ah. You may want to look that up before tomorrow evening," he answered, as the Cressida pulled away from the curb.

Christmas Day was such a mad house in the office, though, that I didn't have a chance to look that term up.

* * * *

"You look perfection itself. Does it fit? Is it comfortable enough?"

"Yes and yes," I answered Riyoshi. "It's all quite divine . . . and a miracle. I never knew you could get a custom-made suit of such quality made overnight."

"Then you must visit Hong Kong or Bangkok," Saito said. He was sitting on the plastic modular-frame bed and watching me dress, just a few feet away from him because of the compact size the hotel room. I had made sure I'd stripped all the way down to give him a good look—and, I confess, to give him an opportunity to make a bid of his own, which I would have promptly accepted. Time was short now, but perhaps a sample, with a promise of "later," would tame the raging hard I had from having him so near me in a small hotel room with a bed while I dressed. I could clearly see the tenting of his trousers as well.

But he stayed true to my price having been paid for his employer's enjoyment, rather than his, and contented himself with drinking in the visage of my body, which I was quite proud of in those days—and had every right to be, I think—and not bothering to hide from me his interest. Stripped down, I'd gone to the equally compact hotel bathroom and done the whole nine yards in preparing myself for a night of another man's fantasy down to douching my channel, trimming my bush, and shaving my pits.

At the mention of Bangkok, I gave him a hard look. Had he or his employer run some sort of background check on me? I hadn't mentioned I lived in Bangkok. I said I was only here temporarily, but, as I obviously was an American, I would have thought they would assume I'd come in from the States. And a background check would reveal that I wasn't the rent boy they seemed to assume I was—and it would reveal so much more that they probably wouldn't have wanted to know.

No, they didn't know, I decided. And he wasn't far off in tailoring time in the South Asian-run tailor shops in Bangkok. But I'd never gotten a suit there in less than four days and certainly not one tailored this well. I was broad across the chest and slim in the hips—not to mention needing extra concealment in the crotch—in ways that required a really good tailor. And the hunched-over tailor from the previous night had been beyond good.

At Mr. Tanaka's apartment house, I waited in the Cressida sedan while Saito went up to escort Tanaka down to the car. Saito had told me that we were driving out to Ueno Park and the concert hall there, the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, for a Christmas choral concert before going to dinner. It had begun to snow before we left the New Japan Hotel, and it was coming down quite heavily now. I was beginning to get into the Christmas spirit. I had this nifty present I was wearing, with the fleecy woolen material feeling so soft on my bare skin—I had been told not to wear underwear—and the snow was beginning to stick, covering and toning down the garish colors and cheap construction of the Christmas decorations strewn everywhere.

I could not have had a white Christmas in Bangkok. I wondered if my family would be having one in the States. Wouldn't it be a gas, I thought, if they flew half way around the world to a sunny Christmas and I was having a white one right here?

We had a pretty private box above the concert floor at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, and it was a good thing we did. Tanaka had me sit beside him at the front of the box, with him almost hidden by a red velvet curtain at the corner of the box. Saito sat behind us, and the burly chauffeur stood at the door to the box, as if protecting us from an invasion.

I soon understood why. A sudden invasion would have proven to be quite embarrassing.

As we waited for the concert to begin, Saito mentioned to Tanaka that I collected Shin-hanga art, and that seemed to interest him enough to speak with me. I had assumed that he couldn't speak English, since he'd let Saito do all of the talking for him to this point, but his English was impeccable.

"I actually collect mostly from a later period than the Shin-hanga," I said. "That's one reason I wanted to come to Tokyo. I wanted to track down more of the post--World War Two woodblock artists."

"Like Saito and Tanaka?" Mr. Tanaka asked, with a smile on his face.

I did a double take. Saito and Tanaka indeed were major artists of this period. Riyoshi Saito was much too young to be the artist of that name, though. That artist would be pushing seventy now. But Tanaka? Tanaka was another matter.

I gave him a close, questioning look, but he just sat there, looking inscrutable, as the lights went down in the hall and the curtain began to part. There was another reason I couldn't pursue that question. As the lights went down, Tanaka was making his first direct, skin-on-skin sexual move on me. He was zipping down the fly of my tux and pulling my cock out. He turned his face to me, gave me a dreamy look, and began to stroke me.

I almost laughed at the incongruity of it all. An elegantly clad elderly gentleman stroking my cock in a concert hall—me clad in a tux as well—as . . . the Vienna Boys Choir started to sing an angelic song of Christmas down on the stage.

I could hear Riyoshi Saito breathing hard in the chair behind me, and I closed my eyes, listened to the music, and pretended that it was Riyoshi who was jacking me off. I was gratified to know that I had still been half hard when Tanaka freed my cock from thinking about what Saito and I could have done in the hotel. Tanaka no doubt thought I was aroused by him.

I was fully hard from his stroking when I felt the moist lips on my bulb and looked down to see that Tanaka had leaned over and was sucking my cock. I gave him what he apparently wanted before the lights went up for the interval. He folded my cock back into my tux trousers, zipped me up, dabbed at his mouth with a white handkerchief, and rose from his chair.

It was up to Saito to inform me that we weren't staying beyond the interval. The chauffeur was already gone from the box and had the Cressida pulled around to the front of the theater when we were coming down the steps. It still was snowing and here, in the park, where the architecture was more traditionally Japanese than in the center of the city. The effect was one of an exotic winter fairyland. Well worth the trip from Bangkok, with or without Christmas presents.

We were driven back into the city center, with Tanaka reclining in his corner of the backseat and me in the opposite corner. I wondered if I was supposed to come on to him or give him cock play while we rode, but there was no change in his demeanor when I just remained where I was. From time to time I looked forward to the rearview mirror in the front seat. Each time Saito had his eyes on me. If more was expected of me in making an advance on Tanaka at this point, I assumed that Saito would give me some sort of signal. He didn't.