Ethiopian Cabin Boy

But to my surprise, when I was training for intelligence gathering, I discovered that my line of work wasn’t as pristine sexually as I had tried to convince myself it was. I should already have been aware of this, as I had already gotten hints of my spy masters looking the other direction in Bangkok when it pleased them to do so. And in my training, I learned that they could be pleased to do so if the intelligence needed was considered very important and when the options of “getting the goods” were restricted.

I was sent into the Middle East and stationed in Cyprus, which is now considered in relationship to the Middle East somewhat like Switzerland was considered to Europe in World War II—a safe haven where spies can meet on neutral ground and where it is considered ungentlemanly (although it does happen on occasion) for “wet” (meaning doing someone to death) operations to be conducted. And it wasn’t long before I learned how far I might be expected to go to “get the goods” in my job. It was also where I quickly found a new answer to one of three questions that had perpetually come up in the world of “bottoms” in my Bangkok days: This question was “What was your longest?” One of the other questions, “What was your thickest?,” would also be answered when I lived on Cyprus, but during a different tour a decade later. The remaining question, “What was the most satisfying?,” had already been answered years earlier in Bangkok in the form of a black Army officer (who, with his 10 by 2 dimensions, almost answered the other two questions as well).