Alex had lived in Moscow happily for ten weeks, when Sergei announced they were off on a business trip.
"Where are we going, again?" Alex asked as he watched Maria pack for both him and Sergei. Maria was Sergei's girl friday. She organised his diary, business contacts and the events that he had to attend for networking. The woman always attached to her phone, working impossibly long hours and totally devoted to her boss. Alex liked Maria talking to her, when her schedule allowed about music, her family, his lack of family and she was highly amused when he stole her office supplies. She lived and breathed all Sergei's business. Alex was sure she disapproved of him, seeing him as a damaged child. Then again, Maria probably knew Sergei better than anyone. Alex was not the first boy to share the Russian's apartment. He thought she liked him only to practice her English conversation skills.
"Korea" answered Maria.
"As in Seoul?" Alex said thinking of the the 2002 World Cup.
"No, the other Korea" said Maria.
"There's another one?" stated Alex with a straight face. He thought North Korea was a closed society, Stalinist or Maoist hardline and very anti anything western. Russia was now an evil capitalist state as well.
"Didn't you do geography in school?" Maria looked at Alex like he was an idiot.
"I tended to sleep in Geography." Alex was actually telling the truth, Mr Scott at Brookland had been the most boring man in the universe. He had been glad to drop the subject at Petrus. Yassen had talked of Korea, both the the Communist North and the Western South. Alex had noted a subtle inference from the man, neutral in all things, a job was a job. For an assassin there was no divide, no religion, no politics.
Maria's phone rang and she walked into the main room to get better reception. Alex stood and took advantage of her distraction and noted Sergei's itinerary and contacts for the next two months. A single glance was enough for him to memorize people, dates and events. Ian would be so proud of him using the skills Ian instilled in him without a second thought or a twinge on his conscience.
The learjet landed at a bleak military airbase. Sergei had been all business on the flight. At the top of the planes's exit, Alex looked at the soldiers of the advance guard. Sergei was being warmly greeted by a general who had an impossible amount of medals on his chest. Alex exited the plane wearing jeans, a t shirt and a wolf fur coat, which he drew around himself as he silently descended the stairs. As Alex reached the tarmac, a young colonel talked to Alex in impeccable english. "So you are Sergei Rushkov's 'son'?" The man confused by the presence of a teenage companion.
Alex looked at the Korean like he was insane "No, the preferred the term is lover, but I have been called whore. Son is a new one."
Colonel Kim turned out to be Alex's own personal not so subtle minder, tail and bodyguard. He kept Alex company as Sergei worked. His russian was also excellent. It was all so stilted, polite and boring. There was no real TV, only state sanctioned newspapers, books and the teenagers movements were restricted to the hotel. North Korea had turned out to be the most boring place in the Universe. He tried to write, but Colonel Kim was not amusing or conducive to being creative. Alex thought on a more Vogon approach to verse on the lines of 'Ode to a lump of green putty I found in my belly button one day'. Maybe Douglas Adam's had based Vogon's on party apparatchiks. What would the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy say about grey and bleak Pyongyang? After a long, protracted silence, Alex tried a phrase of hebrew on the Korean and Kim looked at him strangely. "I do not know this language?"
"It was a quote from some of the oldest poetry known. One of King David's psalms." Alex had learned a few snippets of Hebrew since his stay in Israel. He could get by in the language but was no where near fluent. He had even tried to read the Torah, not that Alex was in the slightest bit devout, he had spoken three rabbi's over the years, never getting any sense of perspective on the mess that was his life.
"You are religious?" inquired the Korean as if reading his mark's mind.
"No, I just appreciate the written and spoken word. Teach me some Korean Poetry." What a question to ask of someone in military intelligence.
As it turned out, Kim was not a poetic man and he eventually took Alex to meet some scholars at Pyongyang university. Alex traded verses and was invited to a seminar with some of the Phd students. Alex was given some beautiful calligraphy to keep. Poetry was more than just words, it was an art form. Alex then thought to his own scruffily kept journals. Maybe he should make more of an effort to make his finalised verses beautiful to look at. Not just scribbles on a page.
Alex knew the hotel suite was bugged and they were being watched and probably videoed. The suite was on the upper floor of the 'foreigner's only hotel'. On their third night there, he thought of this as he seduced a tired Sergei and enjoyed riding the man's cock and was particularly vocal as his prostate was brushed and screamed his orgasm with vigour.
As he lay in the afterglow Alex whispered to his lover "I love your cock, Sergei."
Sergei mumbled half asleep. Alex wanted intelligent company, to talk of verse, places, people but his lover was asleep. He got up and went onto the balcony still naked to chain smoke and brood. It was cold and bleak, even the city was dark with only occasional pools of light illuminating state portraits and public displays. It was strange to be in a city, so quiet and still. Alex more than ever missed London. He shivered from cold and returned inside, to spent the rest of the night writing in the main room of the suite in the pool of a single side light.
"You have not slept" the russian stated during breakfast in their suite. Alex was naked and looked tired and unhappy.
"I hate this place Sergei. I want you to take my mind off it." Alex stated, feeling guilty for not eating a luxurious breakfast of imported delicacies, in a country where the poor and unfortunate starved.
The businessman looked up from his laptop to stare at his unhappy teenage lover. "How would I do that?"
Alex went to the bedroom, to pick up a walking cane, to return and kneel before Sergei. "Correct my bad mood, master."
Colonel Kim of the State Security was punctual as usual to keep Sergei's young 'lover' company for the day. He entered to suite and the main room was empty. The bedroom door was open and he looked in to see Alex lying asleep face down on the bed, his back, buttocks and thighs mass of red and purple welts.
Sergei arrived back in the rooms to see Colonel Kim asleep on the sofa. Sergei coughed and the Korean jumped up and left. Alex was in the shower having slept the day away. Sergei joined him. Alex kissed the older man and said "Thank you for chasing my demons away."
Sergei ran his finger tips lightly over the welts and bruising "Are you OK or do you need a doctor?"
"I'll be fine. Now I have something to occupy my mind during the state reception tonight."
Alex was not effeminate in any way. But he shaved meticulously, paid attention to style his hair and chose to wear an almost scandalously queer combination to the banquet. Picking out a couple of items that Maria had insisted he'd look fabulous in, but ones that Alex had thought he'd never in a million years wear. The dark satin suit and pink and grey flora shirt were tightly tailored to his thin frame. He looked the part of a young fucktoy. He played the submissive, and kept his eyes downcast and only spoke when spoken to. Sergei kept touching him and was being possessive of his lover. Alex knew he had played the day perfectly to push his lover's buttons. Sergei was aroused and the sex tonight promised to be neither slow nor gentle.
The next morning Alex viewed the bruises, bites and hickeys that littered his torso, arms and neck, matching the dark bruising on his back in the large mirror in the suite's luxurious bathroom. Sergei had taken him three times last night. Alex decided to go for a swim in the hotel's pool to brazenly show off his decorations.
Alex was kept amused by Sergei's continued attentions. He was worried he had been too brutal with him when Alex arrived back from his swim. "Sergei, you were wonderful, strong and exactly what I wanted last night. I want you however you want to take me, slow and long or quick and hard."
Kim took Alex to the base where Sergei was working on their last day in Korea. Alex saw Soldiers training. The Colonel, after a week of strained conversations asked a very personal question of the teenager. "So you have been in mental hospital."
Alex did not want to discuss Yassen, his few lost days in London with Grey or his school trip to Austria, so settled on his time at St. Jude's, where he had stated to deal with his fucked up life. "I did not like boarding school. I got kicked out after getting caught cutting myself. Self mutilation. I was rather enthusiastic and was hospitalised. I normally just dressed my wounds and nobody noticed."
"Cut yourself?" asked the Colonel.
Alex pulled up his sleeves to show off his scars. Kim also noticed the deep bruises on his lower arms and wrists to match those visible on the boy's neck. "There you go, nutcase"
"Have you done this always?" Kim took a long drag of his cigarette, thinking the boy as a masochist. The arms dealer beat and abused him.
"Since I was fourteen. Bad things happened when I was 14. I went a bit nuts at 15. Sixteen was OK, and now I'm 17." Kim looked a bit shocked at Alex being so young.
Alex watched the hand to hand combat and yawned. They then watched a firearms demonstration " Do you teach instinctual firing?"
"I am not familiar with this." Stated the Korean with a blank face.
Alex could not decide of Kim was really ignorant or just lying. "Scorpia standard teaching for snipers and assassins. My father introduced it when he taught at Malagosto in the 1980's. I learnt from one of his pupil's."
"You were taught by Scorpia." This man was a trained assassin and they had treated him like a toy.
"Aren't you a clever boy." Alex just smiled.
Finally they left the depressing hole that was North Korea. Not that much changed, Sergei had more meetings in Beijing and Alex played tourist, only here he was alone with no state sanctioned escort. For two nights Sergei did not return to the hotel. Alex was in a strange mood, ignoring his hunger, watching American talk shows as his stomach rumbled. In a fit of absolute boredom, he phoned Edward Pleasure to catch up on life outside the bubble that was life as the kept boy of an international arms dealer. "How's work, Edward?"
"The book is set for release in October. Can you timetable in some publicity?"
"Sure thing. I'm bored to tears at the moment. What are you writing at the moment?"
"An article on Dieter Sprintz." Edward sighed "Any tips on making his life more interesting?"
"Umm I've snorted coke with his son." Alex added. One fact Dieter Sprintz would not want publicized. Not when both boys were meant to have been clean after St. Jude's. James still liked to party and was oh so much better at not getting caught.
"You have?"
"We were at St. Jude's together."
"Really? That was over a year after the hostage incident at the school in France?"
"Yeah James told me all about that place, Dr Grief and Miss Stomach bag. He told me the SAS went in to rescue the kids." Alex could hear Edward taking notes.
"What's the deal with Rushkov, Alex?. Is it love?" Edward was concerned, he'd introduced Alex to the man who adored poetry, not thinking Alex would end up in bed with him.
"I'll take a raincheck on that. I fear he's fucking someone else tonight. I think I might be jealous. I guess I'll be told to fuck off tomorrow when someone younger, more supple and more fun arrives back with Sergei. Nothing good ever lasts."
"Don't do anything stupid, Alex."
"Stupid is my middle name, Edward."
Alex watched the dawn streaked with smog clouds. At 9am, Sergei called him to tell Alex he was not comfortable with him meeting his current business contact. "Go back home I will contact you in three or four weeks. I have much work to do."
"Am I that much of a distraction?" Alex asked, wondering why Sergei did not want him to meet Major Winston Yu, head of the Snakehead in charge of Organised Crime over much of south-east asia.
"I would worship you all day and night if I could." Sergei stated truthfully.
Alex was booked on the evening flight back to London. He looked at the stuff Maria had packed and pulled out the few items that he had actually bought and changed. He felt alone and empty. Alex left with he clothes on his back, his wallet, ipod, cigarettes, lighter and two journals and left everything else.