When I regained consciousness, I was on a bed, with a strait-jacket to keep me there. Nearby were Bruce and two other men. I told them they had really screwed up -- certainly by now the video tapes with my declarations were already in the hands of the mass-media.
One of the two men smiled: "We have in our possession eight videos and I am sure there are no other copies around. Anyway, nobody will make public anything, we took every precaution." he said.
I used every curse word I knew, but then I gradually calmed down. It was evident they had won, there were only eight videos. Then, I asked what they were going to do with me -- keep me a prisoner forever? Make me disappear? One of the other men said that this also could be a solution -- they could make me die in a car accident and all would be settled. I don't know why, but somehow I believed they really were ready to do that also.
I asked Bruce what they intended to do. What he decided to do. Instead of answering me, he asked me what I wanted to do.
"I just want to live in peace, have my Khaled back and live with him as a common Gay man without all these problems. Why don't you have me die, and give me another identity, and leave me in peace? It shouldn't be difficult for you."
"But who can promise us that you will not get us into trouble again?"
"I really only care to live my life without problems. Give me a forged passport, a new identity and I swear that I won't even think about setting foot at home. Let me live my life."
Bruce told me that he would think about my request. For several days I remained shut up in the room they first put me in. They did take off the straight-jacket. From the blocked window I couldn't look out and only a little light came in. I didn't have the slightest idea where I was. I imagine they watched me night and day with a closed circuit TV. They fed me, sometimes Bruce came to see me, either alone or with the other two men.
One day the door opened and Khaled entered my room alone. I looked at him with wide eyes, unbelieving. He smiled at me and we were quickly in one another's arms, even as somebody shut the door.
"Simon, love... or rather Dave?"
"How are you?" I was too surprised to even hang my head in shame over the deception.
"And you?"
"Do you know?"
"Yes... I know everything."
"And you aren't angry with me?"
"No, it is not your fault."
"I love you, Khaled."
"I love you too. I didn't even know they were taking me to you, at last. I'm so happy. But what will happen, now?"
"I don't know..." Then I called, "Bruce!" In a while the door opened and Bruce came in. "So then, what have you decided?"
"We are in contact with a small country, an ally. If we can conclude the whole deal, we will give you two passports of that land. But if you accept, I must warn you, you will never again be able to leave that country. We will find you a house, a job. But you two have to forget all about your past."
"Yes, of course, I promise." I said, then looked at Khaled. He nodded in assent, his hand gently squeezed my hand.
Bruce promised he would give us news soon. When we were alone, I closed the window's shutters and, in the dark, I approached Khaled, embracing him: "Let's make love." I begged him.
"Why in the dark?" he asked holding me against himself.
"I think they are watching us with monitors."
"I don't care -- I want to look at you while I make love with you. I have waited so long for this moment, I was afraid it would never happen again. Open the window, please."
"No, not this time. Maybe the next time." I said starting to undress him.
"As you wish." he gently conceded, embracing me and kissing me with passion.
"I love you!" I said.
"Me too."
"And are you ready to renounce to everything for me?"
He nodded. "You too are! And then, I'm really in love with you -- nothing else matters."
"Will you not get tired of me?"
"I hope not, nor you of me? My friends think I betrayed them and swore to me they will kill me, therefore... If we get a new identity somewhere we have everything to gain. My god, how much I do love you! Come here, my colt, let me tame you."
We made love for a long time, full of passion, undisturbed. When we dressed again and opened the window shutters, after a short while Bruce came in. We received him still sitting on my little bed, half embraced. He told us that we had to stay in that room for some days, waiting for our new identities to be created. My father had accepted the faking of my death in a car accident and of my disappearance. I thought that he probably breathed a sigh of relief.
We were informed that the King of Tonga, in exchange for a conspicuous "donation", agreed to give us the Tonga nationality and new identities. There the Service would open a bank account for us. At first we would live in a hotel in Nuku'Alofa, the capital, until we found a location to our satisfaction. The Tonga Islands, a vast number of tiny islands, known also as the Friends' Islands, between the Fiji and Samoa, in the immense breadth of the Oceania islands, are on the international date line and are a little below the 15th South Parallel.
They were setting up everything. They took pictures of us to issue the new documents. I insisted that we have the same family name on our documents -- Marakei and my name would be Jonathan and that of Khaled would be Abraham.
We could not leave right away, as they were waiting for the right moment for staging the accident where I had to "die". First they had to find a dead young man not reclaimed by his family, someone who could pass for me after a movie makeup artist gave him my appearance, then we could leave at long last. Finally, when all was ready, they accompanied us to a hotel near the airport where we received our prepared luggage and suitcases, and the airline tickets to Australia and from there to Tonga.
Only my father and mother knew that the corpse sent to their home, and for whom they celebrated a funeral, was not me. Bruce, who was coming to Tonga with us, told me that not even my brothers knew the truth. I found that macabre, but it gave me the long awaited freedom to live in my way, with the boy I loved, therefore I accepted it without too many misgivings, as we both already agreed not to ever try to enter into contact with any of our families, or any of our friends or acquaintances.
Upon reaching Nuku'Alofa, we were settled in a hotel downtown. Here Bruce introduced us to the agent who would be our only contact with the Agency -- he was a forty seven year old man, Steve, who officially was the manager of a boutique downtown. He was married to a Tongan woman and had two sons, Mark and Richard, twenty and seventeen year old respectively. Even to his family we were officially Abraham and Jonathan Marakei, two Tongan cousins who lived from birth in Europe and who were now coming back to their country.
Our story was simple, we were the sons of two Tongan brothers, the sons of a Tongan man and a French woman, who emigrated to Europe when he was young. The brothers each married European women -- my mother was English and the mother of Khaled a Spanish. This to justify his dark skin and black hair and my fair skin and clear brown hair... These facts explained why we didn't speak the Tongan language at all, and also our "savings" in the bank.
The local community was mainly composed of natives, a sizable number of mixed blood, and a few strangers and was multiracial, so that we could also pass unnoticed. There were also two Frenchmen, three Germans, an Englishman, two Americans, four New Zealanders, six Australians and three Indians. The main resource was fishing, coconuts and some tourism.
Mark and Richard, with their motorboat, took us to visit little by little the islands of the tiny kingdom -- Ata, Tongatapu, Nomuka, Kotu, Haapai, Vava'u, Fonualei, Niuato, Putapu, Tafahi, Niuafo'ou and thousands of others, some even without a name. It was a real tropical paradise, mainly composed of low and flat coral atoll. We, like the residents, quickly acquired enviable and complete tans. In many islands complete nudism was practiced and there was an air of pleasurable freedom also on the sexual plane.
So, when Mark and Richard on one occasion asked us if we didn't miss being with a girl, without hesitation we answered no, and that we were lovers. The two boys didn't seem disturbed at all by this. In fact Mark told us that it he had done it with some boys, even though he preferred girls, and Richard added that sooner or later, if he found the right guy, he too would like to try it with a boy. Khaled asked him who would be his "right guy", and the boy answered: "Some one like Brad Pitt, for instance."
We were at Nuku'Alofa for a couple of months, when we decided to buy a pub looking out on the beach, made from a traditional building here, where there was also a small apartment. It was called "The Friend's Island Pub" and had been managed for almost twenty years by an English man who now decided to move to New Zealand. We made plans to refurbish it, then we left the hotel and moved in there.
The pub virtually didn't have a closing time, therefore we decided to keep all four waiters already working there, also because they seemed congenial and they were young, handsome and, as the old owner told us, also "available" -- in fact he, although he was not Gay, decided to give to his pub a Gay atmosphere, and we certainly didn't have a problem with it at all. The "FIP", as it was called for short, was listed in all the international Gay guides and the 90% of his tourist customers were certainly Gay, further, more than a few of the locals didn't hesitate to come in from time to time.
The "availability" of our waiters to our clients was thus: after their work shift, for a good tip, were ready and willing to see them in their hotel rooms or homes, including the married one. However the old owner had asked them to do nothing inside the pub, besides making arrangements. We retained that rule. But we changed their uniforms, making the new ones more sexy.
Among the regular customers of our pub there was a young, thirty six year old Australian lawyer, Jeff Melrose. He arrived every month to spend a few days in the nearby hotel, and each year he spent a full month there. He always took one of our boys to his hotel room. Gradually we became friends -- he was really personable and interesting company, so we started to go to the beach together also.
We were amazed as to why a young man, so fascinating, likable and also handsome, didn't have a steady lover. After a few months when we knew each other better, he told us his story -- his lover died two years before from AIDS and after that he didn't want to have a lover any more. He was not infected, he always took precautions. In Australia he had a very good job, being the legal consultant for two big investment trust companies and for an international transports company, and he was wealthy. He was also co-owner of the hotel where he stayed, and there he had a personal room.
Before his lover died, he bought from the government an atoll consisting of three small islands in the group of the Haapai, and they had also built a house there. He paid a couple of native boys to keep it in order, but after his lover died he never again set foot in there, and preferred to stay at the hotel. Furthermore the two natives caring for his house were Gay -- they met them a few years earlier, when they set foot on Tonga for the first time. They were two orphan boys, lovers, who also sold themselves to the tourists for a piece of bread. Jeff and his lover at times allowed themselves some "variations" so, when the two boys, on the beach, offered themselves to them, they decided to take both to their room to make love with them.
Jeff and his lover had been conquered by the sweet freshness of the two boys, by their spontaneous passion, by their innocent availability. They grew fond of them so, when they built their home on the atoll, they hired them, finding in them loyal friends more than just two servants. The two boys, besides receiving a salary, lived off fishing. He now saw them from time to time, when the two youths went to the hotel to give him accounts about the house.
We asked him why he didn't use, or sell the house. "I don't feel like going there, it is too filled with Dick's memories. I would feel too bad. About selling it, I really don't like the thought of strangers going to what had been our love nest. And anyway I don't need money. Therefore, for the moment, it is all right as it is." he answered thoughtfully.
We met also the two youths keeping in order in Jeff's house. They were Mike and Loui, and they were now around twenty years old. Loui was decidedly beautiful, Mike less so but equally likable. They bursting with health and it was a pleasure seeing them together, as one couldn't help but guess the deep love that united the two. Mike had a lively and ready intelligence and spoke a quite fluent English. After that we met, from time to time, when they came to the capital with their small boat, they came to greet us.
Our pub earned us a nice profit so that, even if we were not really rich, we didn't have money problems. Every month the transfer came to our bank from a New Zealand bank, so our savings were increasing, slowly but steadily. In fact the money we earned in our pub allowed us to pay all the expenses, the four salaries of the waiters, and to have a good living, and still had something yet to be saved. So, together, we started to think how we could use our savings. Khaled had the idea -- to open a resort or hotel for Gay men.
We were just talking about that, when Jeff arrived and heard our idea. At first he said nothing, he just listened. But the next time he came to Nuku'Alofa, he asked us what kind of hotel we had in mind to open. We told him that we had not yet decided exactly, but that we were thinking of building a hotel on one of the thousands of small islands of Tonga, completely built following the traditional local architecture, that is in wood and mats, where the guests could live the traditional islanders' life.
"Something beautiful but simple, without TV or air conditioning, without even the electric light, but with perfect sanitary amenities." Khaled said.
Jeff nodded: "As Dick and I built our house then."
"Ah, really?"
"Yes. Especially when you live in a large modern city, it is good from time to time to go back to a more simple way of living, more primitive." Jeff said.
"Right, that is what we thought -- by the way this is also why we like this pub." Khaled said and added: "And also for that reason we don't want to build it here in Nuku'Alofa -- it is already too much Westernized for our liking."
Jeff for a while kept silent, he seemed thoughtful, then said: "Would you like to take a look at my house on the atoll?"
We looked at him somewhat taken aback, then I asked him: "Do you feel like going back there?"
"Who knows... with you, possibly yes." Jeff answered. Then added: "It is silly to keep that empty house. Even if I think I don't still feel like living in there, alone."
We went about two months later, in the small motorboat we had just bought. It was a small atoll, the internal round lagoon of water, was around two hundred or two hundred and fifty feet wide. It was divided into three bending and oblong islands, one with a thick forest of trees, the other two, more flat, and on one of the other two was the house, a square building surrounded by a veranda in the traditional architecture. Loui and Mike welcomed us with joy. We walked into the small grove, we settled under the sun while the two servants brought us food.
"Do you like it here?" Jeff asked us.
"Oh, yes, very much."
"With Dick we often come here to sun bathe, to swim, to make love. It feels good here, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"Okay... So... I was thinking... if you leave the wood on this island intact, on the other two you could build other houses and make your hotel..."
"Are you serious?"
"Would you like to enter in agreement with me? I give the islands, you make the buildings and manage the hotel."
He was serious. The only thing he asked us were to use his house only for ourselves, not to rent it, to respect the forest, and to keep Loui and Mike on. We talked for a long while, going more and more into the details. There was the problem of the drinkable water and that of the sewage so as not to pollute the island water table and lagoon. Jeff told us that it was easy to solve these problems with proper techniques, and at reasonable prices. So, we went back to the capital, after discussing some other details, we started a company with Jeff and we engaged in building the hotel.
We decided that the main lobby would be there in Nuku'Alofa, by transforming our pub. We asked and obtained from the authorities permission to buy the stretch of beach in front of the pub, to build the pier for the hotel. We started the work. Meanwhile we thought about how to advertise our hotel. Jeff bought several Gay guides and several Gay magazines from several countries -- we prepared a text, with pictures, and we asked to all the guides and magazines to publish it.
We also entered in contact with several travel agencies organizing holidays for Gays, in America, Australia and Asia, sending them beautiful brochures and other documentation material and we signed contracts. Through the magazines, we also put up as prizes a certain number of free stays to launch our hotel.
To organize everything took us six months and finally we could open our hotel. It had twenty rooms that could host up to four people each, divided into four houses. Our first clients started to arrive in June, they were for the most part winners of the opening free prizes, coming mainly from the United Stated and Australia, but there where also two European couples and one from Japan.
The hotel's personnel was composed of Mike and Loui, of our four boys from the pub, and five more we hired. The new boys were hired by Jeff in Australia: they were an Italian, a French, a black African, and Indian and a Korean. For uniform they all wore a short lilac pareu (sarong) and nothing else. For our guests, instead, we prepared pareu with a floral pattern. They were welcomed at the airport, taken by the hotel car to the lobby, our ex-pub, where they proceeded to the check in, then with our small motor launch to the atoll were they were given their room.
The motor boat connected the atoll to Nuku'Alofa four times a day at fixed times, but was available also for extra trips if needed. The atoll was connected via radio telephone with the lobby. On the atoll the guests could go around dressed as they liked or be naked. They could ask to our boys to go to their rooms to make love, but the boys were free to accept or not, and could accept a gift, but were never to ask for it. The customers could also find a boy in the main island and to take him to their hotel room if they chose.
Soon the first paying guests started to come -- life was agreeable, food excellent, service thoughtful. To make the stay at our hotel more appealing, we thought to offer, through the gay magazines and the gay associations all around the world, to young gay boys between eighteen and twenty five of age, free periods of staying in our hotel in exchange for part-time work for four hours a day as waiters, sport instructors or entertainment organizers. They could stay from a minimum of one month to a maximum of three months each year. So, almost all our personnel was composed of boys from all over the world. We invited to the best of them to come again. The second time we paid their the air fare, and the third time also a weekly salary.
Our clientele gradually increased so that, after a little more than one year from the opening, it became necessary to book almost three months ahead. We worked at full pace with an average of forty clients and sometimes up to eighty. Besides the possibility for nudism, with the prospect to make love also in the open, among themselves or with our boys who usually willingly accepted their approaches brought us our clients.
Also Khaled and I often made love in the open -- we liked it very much and soon we were aware of the possibility of being seen. Simply, when we withdrew amongst the trees to make love, we choose one of the bushes in shape of a ring we grew on purpose, we spread our pareu on top of them to warn others that it was occupied, and we lay inside. We made a simple rule we explained to the clients on their arrival -- if a pareu was spread on a bush, it meant that those who were inside didn't want other people to enter there, while if there was no pareu on the bushes, it meant that other people were welcome.
Khaled and I always spread our pareu on the bush so that nobody ever came to bother us. More than one client let us know (to Khaled or to me) that he would have liked making love with us, but we were not interested in doing it with others. Of course we made love also in our room, in our bed. Khaled was always very hot and passionate, but also I was no less. I always liked Khaled very much, we were really in love with each other.
We started also to have some repeat clients, affectionate, mainly Americans and Australians, who came to spend their holidays at our hotel year after year. Some came alone, some with their lover, but almost all took advantage of the availability of our boys, especially of the part-time ones. Our atoll really became a gay paradise.
The hotel was working at full occupancy for five years, when Jeff fell in love with one of the boys coming for a part time job. He was a Thai boy, Sanit, studying at the university in New Zealand on a scholarship, and who came to work in our hotel each time he had vacations, to rest and to earn some money.
He was an intelligent and pleasing boy, attractive, serious but cheerful. When Jeff started to court him, Sanit, with grace, stopped accepting the proposal of any clients. We saw them more and more together.
Sanit gradually fell in love with Jeff, and our friend with him, so that one day Jeff, after talking with us to ask our advice, proposed to him to become his lover -- he would pay for his studies in Australia. Sanit accepted and ultimately moved to Jeff's home. For the first time we saw our friend deeply happy again.