The Mandarin

If the visitor took an especial liking to one of the concubines, he was waited upon by the concubine each time he visited. A traditional Chinese evening in the palace was long and elaborate. It included access to the sleeping pavilions with the concubine of assignment. A high-ranking Chinese army general, Lee Win, took a shine to me, and thus I became his personal toy when he dined at the palace. And he dined here a lot.

It was obvious that Fong gave the general his choice of companion while he was in the palace as an inducement for Lee Win to give Fong's projects his support.

It was with interaction with the general during the entertainments in Fong's palace, especially when the two talked while the general was fondling me before he retired with me to a private pavilion for challenging sex, that I learned that the shopping center was, by no means, a high-priority project for Fong's business. It was, in fact, mostly a cover. Most of Fong's business, contracted through his bribery of such government officials as General Lee Win, was, in fact, of military application--most specifically of building reenforced bunkering for defensive and offensive missile systems. The two were less than guarded when I was there not only because minions like me were invisible to Mandarins like Fong and Win but also because they were so arrogant that they made no attempt to learn that I, in fact, had studied their language and could understand much of what they were saying. To them I was just an American male whore, only good to look at with the satisfaction of owning a handsome young American and to be sexually desirable to men who preferred men.

Whereas Fong was proficient in bed, Lee Win was demanding and cruel and, older than Fong, he needed assistance in preparing for carrying out sex. He was a military man, and one, I suspect, who had long service with Chinese intelligence--and had specialized in prisoner interrogation. Although I was not tortured beyond the limits of endurance when he was using me--as perhaps the soldiers he interrogated for what they knew had been--he could not achieve an erection without physically punishing the young man he wanted to fuck--which was me. When he visited, I became well acquainted with binding, X-frames, and various forms of stocks--and of floggers and whips and leather straps and a good deal of slapping about. It never went to the extremes that I could tell that Lee Win was capable of--and that maybe he might build to at some time when he felt Fong would tolerate it or was willing to substitute a fresh submissive and let me go... wherever and in what way.

To some extent, the physical challenging pushed me to higher arousal levels as well. The kicker was that Lee Win was visiting increasingly often as his business arrangements with Fong increased, I suspected I wasn't getting more alluring to Fong as I aged and Lee Win wore me down, and it was evident that Lee Win was needing an increase in the preparations to be able to achieve an erection.

Time was getting short, one way or the other. And, thanks to the coordination between the general and Fong, the strategic threat to the world--and the United States--was soon to increase exponentially. It wasn't just a patriotic duty to try to warn the United States of this impending change. I also had had to leave the United States because I had been placed at a great legal disadvantage--my submissive nature having put pressure on me to advantage certain political forces over others. I had been without leverage in that particular struggle. Getting information on China's strategic capabilities back to the States would give me the leverage to be able to return if I wanted.

And, increasingly, I'd had enough of a fling in the Asian environment. Increasingly, I just wanted to go home and see if I could rise up the ladder in professional tennis.

I didn't have long to decide whether I took action or just continued to be the submissive that men used--and because of where I had now come, that men might just use up totally.

* * * *

I walked into the American Consulate in Beijing early in an afternoon. It wasn't easy getting in and being seen by an officer--an intelligent agent sent over from the embassy's "station," the unit that I knew would be staffed by CIA officers. I had no passport or other papers to show I was an American. I didn't even know if Fong had them. They could still be in Hong Kong with Mattison, I supposed. I did, though, had a couple of names that arrested the consulate official a Marine Guard eventually took me to--and a couple of telephone numbers that obtained respect.

Once some political sources in Washington were satisfied it really was me and that I was in Beijing and that I might have some leverage that would help protect their political tales, they started some balls rolling. Two hours after I'd managed to get as far as the consulate waiting room, an officer from the embassy's station arrived, and action began to accelerate. That officer was the first one I told all of what I knew about the project James Fong and Lee Win were working on and how I knew--and why I had certain connections in Washington, connections, luckily, that worked in consort with the U.S. intelligence community. He agreed that I should be taken to the embassy compound and not leave there until I had been fully briefed and then only under U.S. protection.

I languished in a guest room at the embassy, seeing no one but a few officers for three days. On the third day, another man, older that the others and, quite obviously more important and more in command than anyone in Beijing Station, was ushered into the bedroom where I was virtually prisoner.

"Hello, my name is Sam Winterberry, and I'm here to help you help us," he said.

Two days later, my whole world had changed. I had told Winterberry all I knew--not just about James Fong and Lee Win and the new strategic system the Chinese were building--at least what I knew about that--but about Mattison in Hong Kong, Gerson and the hotel manager in Bangkok, and even the senators and their sex club supplied with young men, in Washington.

I found that Winterberry was no different from any of the other men who had used me. He seduced and bedded me as well, and he was an expert and cruel master. This wasn't really that new for me. Where Lee Winn used a whip or a flogger, Winterberry used a folded-over belt, but whereas Lee Winn required such stimulation to form an erection, Winterberry did it to assert and maintain control--and, I suspect, because he thoroughly enjoyed it.

What was new for me was that he gave me options, only one of which seemed survivable. That option was to work for him in U.S. intelligence, and the big change in my world that that led to is that, having extracted all of the information from me that would serve the CIA's interests in any way, he wanted me to return to Fong's compound and continue gleaning information. I was not going to be extracted from China until there no longer was useful intelligence I could learn here or until I was in such personal danger that I needed to be pulled out. Winterberry had already devised an excuse for Fong on my absence from the compound. I was to turn up in a hospital with a vetted story of a hit-and-run accident that had left me unconscious and unidentifiable for days.

The brutality and willingness to use his agents was quite evident in Winterberry in that, even having bedded me and made me his, he participated in beating me so badly that I, in fact, didn't become conscious in the hospital for a day after Fong, cleverly guided, found me there. He was there when I woke. It was evident that he suspected nothing. He had me taken back to his compound and nursed back to health. I was too important a chit with Lee Winn for him to not ensure I recovered.

My life and existence in the compound of James Fong, complete with visits from Lee Winn continued. A new servant appeared in the compound who became my conduit to Beijing Station. Winterberry had told me that at some point I would be pulled out and put on another project that would fully use my abilities. I did not count on that, though. I wasn't sure that working for Sam Winterberry would be any more affirming or survivable than working for James Fong... or Ted Mattison... or Helmet Gerson... or, for that matter, a variety of U.S. senators.