IN WHICH TINTIN MAKES THE MOST OF HIS STAY IN AMERICA
I came to the big city looking for excitement, plain and simple. Not the kind of clandestine, questionable excitement one has come to expect of places like Chicago; I came here to defy all that noise, to make a name for myself off of the likes of honesty and goodness - real ethical stuff, you know. Start a legacy and then go see the world.
I landed a job running bags for wealthy fat cats right off the bat and started a little savings for the publication I was gonna start running, The Affable Eye. Suffice it to say things didn't go as planned. Days turned into months, months into years, and I was still working at that damned hotel. I never really lost my desire for adventure and truth though, and was rewarded by my coworkers having a laugh at my expense - Tintin, boy reporter, they'd call me.
I suppose it made sense. After all among the lot of them I had the lightest hair, the most freckles; a regular babyface. As big of a fan as I secretly was I got irritated enough with the moniker that I took up drink and smoke for a while to try to shed the image, but all I came away with was a nasty cold and a reputation for being the slowest bellhop on payroll for about a month.
In spite of all this I was somehow still surprised to discover that not only was the man himself going to make an appearance at our particular joint, but that everyone (including my boss) had elected me to attend to him.
I played like I wasn't so sure about it, like I had to think a moment.
But honestly, like I was going to say no to that.
"This is your room, Mr. Tintin."
"Thanks."
He didn't look at me as he went inside, something was waiting for him on the living room table and he made a beeline for it. "Hello, a letter for me?"
He was half a head taller than I was. My eyes were level with his lips as they worded the letter silently before he tore it to shreds.
"That, Mr. Al Capone, is what I think of your threats."
I nearly knocked over his luggage as I ferried it into the corner of the room with shaking arms. Mr. Al Capone! I immediately felt the urge to drop to my knees and race across the carpet collecting the bits of scattered paper so I could piece them together and read the note myself; but this wasn't my life, or my business. It did no good to get involved.
His bags were damned heavy and I was glad to be rid of them as I watched him roam from room to room, checking behind doors and under furniture. He even looked in the toilet but for what is beyond me. I dusted my hands off as he returned with his dog in tow, who hopped onto a chair and planted his paws on the windowsill. We don't allow pets usually, but for Tintin, my boss said, anything.
"Will you be needing anything else, sir?"
He regarded me finally.
Now, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't jarring to behold the Tintin in real life. I'd come to accept that I resembled him after so much chiding but his hair was a vibrant strawberry blonde where mine was only dirty, the muscles slightly more pronounced in his arms; hundreds more little brown dots mottled his cheeks and nose. I had to keep myself from staring at his face too overtly as he studied mine.
He visually relaxed as he sat on the sofa, crossing his legs and draping an arm across the back. "I've never been to Chicago before; perhaps you might stay and tell me a bit about it? That is, if your superiors don't object."
"Oh, er..." I felt damn near uncultured talking to the guy with his sophisticated accent and all. That, and my boss isn't exactly what you would call an 'understanding' individual.
"It never sleeps, for one thing," I finally said. "New York never sleeps neither but that's because they didn't get all they wanted to get done in a day, Chicago burns the midnight oil just because it can."
His mouth widened into a charming grin at this; tiny dimples pinching neat creases his cheeks. It was a thoughtful, amused look - nothing like the polite, forced smiles I was so used to seeing every day. "It sounds like it's right up my alley," he laughed, genuine kindness oozing out of his every pore. It was the kind of kindness that can't be ignored, that doesn't stop existing just because nobody is there to witness it. I was completely and utterly intoxicated.
"Here, have a seat," he said, shifting over a bit. "I can tell the clerk downstairs you were helping me get settled in, if you'd like. You must work very hard."
The atmosphere in the room was so heady and wonderful and I was becoming so upset with myself for letting my own life become so stagnant that I almost excused myself and bolted straight out of there but before I knew it I was sitting next to him. It felt illicit and downright wrong to just settle myself on a couch in a suite when I should have been working but in the wake of Tintin's self-assured smirk worry was very quickly leaving me.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"Eighteen last month," I replied.
"How long have you been working here?"
"Since I was fifteen," I admitted, and immediately felt ashamed. "Well, I sorta got trapped."
"Trapped?" His brow furrowed and he looked as if he didn't understand the meaning of the word beyond its literal use.
"It's...it's a long story, I was kind of planning to be in Europe by now," I muttered, rubbing my eye. Whereas I'd hotly spouted the whole argument to my coworkers before at the employee office on many occasions in true Chicagoan form I felt rather humiliated trying to declare the same to a man who let nothing stand in his way, the guy who was succeeding at everything that seemed to elude me. "Or...India, I don't know..."
"You should find work at a newspaper, that's how I was given the means to travel."
"Thanks, I'll see about that." I neglected to mention the closet in my apartment packed to the ceiling with content that had been rejected more times than there had been shootings in East Garfield, sucking in a breath through my nose as there was a lapse in conversation, and all I could hear for a while was the occasional honking of a horn in the distance. He was a lovely, lovely character but I prayed for an end to the discussion so I could return to running more bags with my tail between my legs and maybe a refreshed sense of motivation after a few days, if I played my cards right. This visit was doing my pride no favors.
"You remind me a lot of myself a few years ago," the reporter suddenly remarked. "Gracious, we even look a bit similar, don't we."Up close I felt him far younger than I even though I knew we were the same age.
His eyes narrowed. "I wish I could just take you home with me and use you how I like."
I was lost for words. Did he just say what I thought he said? The silence was made even more surreal by the quiet thumping of Snowy's tail on the upholstery as the terrier continued to watch cars down below on the street.
"Mr...Tintin-?"
"You know, in my schedule, so I wouldn't have so many commitments."
My throat slipped back from my heart into my neck and a weird chuckle escaped me, harsh and desperate. "Oh...! I was worried for a moment that you meant- I thought-"
His hand reached across the space between us and came to rest on my leg.
"You thought...what?"
The words disappeared under what I could not decide was nervousness or anticipation but figured was the latter because Tintin is not afraid of anything.
Not commies, not Capone, not a mere rejection from a lowly hotel employee. Nothing.
I'll be the first to admit I was shocked but it wasn't like the guys and I hadn't talked. You know, about why he never had a girlfriend.
"If not that's quite alright," he confided warmly, his palm massaging my thigh. I noted that his knuckles were calloused solid despite the otherwise soft and flawless skin surrounding them; he gave my knee a gentle squeeze and began to withdraw. "If you aren't-"
"I am," I blurted before I had a chance to lie, and at once I felt lighter. "Why, is it...is it that obvious?"
"Sometimes I wonder the same thing about myself," he mused, leaning toward me. I jumped when his lips unexpectedly brushed against the shell of my ear. "Do you think I'm being too forward?" he whispered.
"N-not at all, Mr. Tintin," I said, the last syllable of his name trapped beneath my teeth as they bit my lip.
"Give or receive?" he inquired as if asking me if it were expected to rain. His blush centered perfectly around his cheeks whereas I tend to turn red all over, as I was probably doing now. I am sure I was trembling as he removed my hat and shook my hair out at the roots.
"R...receive, sir. But, but it's been awhile-"
His mouth softly pressed against mine and I wanted to pinch my own wrist but was too stunned to move. He must have stopped for tea on the way to the hotel for his tongue tasted slightly of cinnamon and orange spice. "I take back what I just said," he murmured in between kisses. "You don't look like me, because then it would be vain of me to compliment you, and you are very pretty on your own merits, you know. You must get a lot of tips." The comment carried with it a friendly levity that didn't feel filthy in the least even though he was practically climbing onto me.
"Mr. Tintin-"
"I'm sure they'll begin to wonder where you are sooner or later, we haven't a moment to lose." He'd read my mind. "Do you have... anything-?"
I reached into my jacket and fumbled until I found the tube of clear lubricant I always have with me. It's made for trumpet valves originally but us bellhops keep them on hand for squeaky carts. Less mess and you don't see it like you do grease. Turns out it's a godsend for other things, as well.
"You just relax," he said, taking the tube. I exhaled as his eager touch persuaded me onto my belly, clinging to the armrest while he removed my trousers. I waited patiently for him to douse his fingers before I felt one tentatively wriggle its way inside me, so slippery-smooth I could barely feel it until it curled and began expertly massaging my most sensitive spot. I gasped and Tintin chuckled as if someone had told him a joke. A second finger joined the first; by the time he weaseled a third in I was biting into the thick polyester of my sleeve and mentally begging him to take me.
Soon enough his fingers disappeared and I heard him unzipping his knickerbockers and squeezing a dab more from the bottle. I looked over my shoulder to see. He was at the higher end of the average spectrum, not wildly enormous by any means but perfectly proportioned, and it looked like great fun. It was only slightly darker than the pale skin of his belly, gradating to the same rose blush of his cheeks on the round, swollen tip.
His still moist hands pressed against my lower back as he carefully guided himself into my body, almost as if he was preparing to give a massage; I even briefly wondered if reporting (or loving) was not his only forte as my back popped and I felt my tension dissipate like a deflating balloon before growing hot and swelling into a growing sense of anxious pleasure.
"Cripes," I breathed.
"It isn't often I get to do this," Tintin said, and my stomach flipped when I heard a tremor emerging in his voice. "Usually I am in...your position, and I felt poorly propositioning you so crudely but-" he heaved a lustful sigh as his hips met mine and he was settled completely inside. "No matter, do tell me if you'd like to go fast."
The oil was a more than cooperative assistant and his fearless attitude was contagious. "Fast," I said. "Please, Mr. Tintin."
He slid partway out and thrust back in, hard. I cried out and stifled myself - the walls in this building are thick but I couldn't even begin to imagine what my boss would say to this. I knew, however, that Mr. Tintin would never let anything bad happen to me.
The thought of this only seemed to heighten my passion as he began to fuck me into the corner of the sofa. I couldn't understand how he rode me so demandingly and yet his fingers returned to delicately toying with my ears and hair, the hem of my shirt; which he lifted to plant little pecks along my neck and back. He moaned very boyishly almost as if he were receiving my cock instead.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," was all I could say, and I knew it sounded ridiculous but couldn't bring myself to care. This was the best I'd ever had, from any man or woman. "Oh, cripes-"
He must have felt me tense. "Don't arrive yet," he said softly, his accent seeming to thicken as his tone heightened and he slammed into me faster and harder.
"Yes, Mr. Tintin!" I wailed into my fist. His fingers crept onto my shoulder and he tugged it firmly as he came soundlessly, his essence shooting into me in three distinct pulls. I looked behind me again to find his whole face pink and shrouded with bliss, and before I could say anything he was flipping me over and catching the seed that dribbled out of me with his tongue.
"Mr. Tintin-!"
He kissed away every last bit of his essence with diligence and enthusiasm before his lips roamed onto my aching erection and I was very embarrassed but he looked up at me in a challenging manner, obviously wanting to be watched. His lips encircled my cock and he eagerly begun sucking me off with a practiced, efficient rhythm that ebbed and flowed so quickly it smoothened out into one long channel of ecstasy that I could not have stopped coming at me for the world.
"Mr. Tintin I'm gonna-!"
He reached up and squeezed my arms as if congratulating me on doing something exemplary only instead of shaking my hand he was bobbing his head between my quaking thighs, readily taking me again and again until my ecstasy peaked and I sobbed as I released into his mouth. He moaned back encouragingly, swallowing it all, and I was baffled.
He tentatively lifted his head only when he was sure he had gotten it all. I was quite conscious of myself again and made to find my trousers but Tintin quickly wiped his face with the back of his hand and drew my chin toward his, planting a kiss on my mouth that carried a lingering taste of salt.
"T-thank you," I managed.
"Thank you," he affirmed, slipping off the sofa and reassembling his trousers as I did mine, smoothing them out. "Good, we haven't made a mess." I gazed at him as he swept his hand across the cushions, satisfied.
"...Mr. Tintin?"
"Yes?"
"Please take me with you."
I had never imagined in my wildest dreams Tintin looking lost for words but here he was, gazing at me in surprise. He smiled sweetly but also seemed a bit forlorn.
"I would, but...I've no idea what's in store for me, here or anywhere. It could be extremely dangerous, I don't want to make it a habit of putting other people in harm's way."
"I could be your assistant, I could-" I hopped to my feet, my mouth running faster than my brain, and I found myself void of any more reasons or words for what I wanted. The phrase "I love you" stuck to the roof of my mouth but I knew it was a stronger sentiment than the feeling I was experiencing, no matter how potent it was.
Years later I would learn that he had found a lifetime companion in - of all people - a surly old sea captain. I simply could not understand the appeal at first, but as time wore on it became apparent to me that Tintin deserved someone so insanely dedicated, someone who didn't shy away just because the subject of danger presented itself. Someone who was stubborn enough to willingly throw themselves at his feet again and again despite how foolish the reporter admitted he was, not just to me but to probably all of his partners. They actually make quite a pretty pair.
Tintin was looking at me again like I was a logic puzzle in the Times and I averted his eyes and glanced briefly at his dog, who was now snoozing in the adjacent armchair peacefully. When I turned back to him things were different. I didn't see a hero or a lover, but a peer.
"You're nobody's assistant," he confided, kissing me once more on the forehead and placing my hat back atop my head."I know your kind. You only answer to you." I allowed him to adjust it and clasp the strap around my chin, which he did with care. "You'd do best not to miss me for too long. There's a whole world out there waiting to fall in love with you."
I only saw him once after that. Thirteen days later he phoned the hotel and requested that I come up to his room and wave a kerchief out his window. He did not elaborate and was absent himself from the suite but I was more than willing to do so, even if I didn't understand why. I wasn't even aware he was still in town, let alone in our hotel, and what luck - it was my last day. I had cashed in my savings and there was a ticket to Nepal waiting for me on my desk at home.
A goonish man in a suit and a brown hat noticed the signal and began to make his way down the sidewalk followed by a very familiar-looking paperboy in a yellow shirt who looked up and smiled at me. His features were difficult to make out but those dimples were practically visible from space. I continued to wave the kerchief.
Au revoir, Tintin.
Au revoir, Chicago.
Thanks for everything.