I arrived back in Berlin two days ago, after forty years absence, and walking the streets of this modern, liberated city, my thoughts took me back to my first visit all those years before, so different, and at times, so frightening.

It had been a very different city then, back in the 70s, divided by ugly politics and an ugly wall which ran through its center.

Surrounded as it was by hostile forces, West Berlin lived a desperate frantic life, while its communist other half was bleak, bare, and ugly. At all times, on either side of the wall, there was a sense of doom and constant fear.

I had come to West Berlin to continue my studies in Classical History during a summer session at the Freie Universität and had special visas for access to both the Alte Museum and the Pergamon Museum in East Berlin, both of which housed wonderful artifacts from the Ancient Greek world.

The sense of fear had been heightened for me even by the train trip in to West Berlin. I had come in via Frankfurt in the west, and once we crossed into East German territory, armed officials boarded the train to inspect our papers. The idiot who examined mine thought he had discovered something amiss when he saw that my passport had been issued in London. He was just clever enough to realize that London was not in Australia, so my Australian passport must be a fake.

I was kept under guard for the next hour of the trip by a soldier with a machine gun for much of the rest of the trip, until with the help of a bilingual passenger in my train compartment and another, smarter official, it all got sorted out - but not before the third passenger in our compartment got slapped across the face by a guard for trying to give me some food.

But that incident served to remind me that I was in a hostile world. The bilingual passenger also advised me to be careful even in West Berlin. Both West German and East German agents were everywhere, and were particularly suspicious of foreigners.

It didn't help that I spoke no German at that time. But even with no German at my command, with the help of the tourist center at the main railroad station, the Berlin Haupfbahnhof, even at 7 am, the time of my arrival, I managed to find cheap lodgings in a row of old 3- and 4 -storey brick buildings on a relatively quiet back street. It was a men-only room-and-breakfast affair, run by a large, motherly landlady. She had been alerted to my arrival by the station tourism personnel, and showed me to my third-floor room, and after giving me two keys - one for the room and one for the front door - she managed to inform me in German that I was just in time for frühstück - breakfast.

Even that first breakfast was cary and foreign to me. The breakfast room was a large bare room on the ground floor. It had a large folding trestle-style table set up with cutlery, plates and coffee mugs and condiments. There were wooden chairs all around it, and six or seven working-class men seated on them. One of the men pointed me toward a spare chair, and I joined them. Another pointed out the urn of coffee on a sideboard, and the empty mug amongst the utensils in front of my seat. I took the mug and poured myself a coffee. There was no milk or cream, so I took it black, with lots of sugar. It was a nasty bitter brew.

Then breakfast was served. The landlady's maid set in the center of each table a large bowl of chopped onions, another bowl of eggs, and a third of raw hamburger. There was also a large basket of sliced bread on each table.

Not sure what to do, I watched as each man loaded his plate with raw hamburger, topped it with chopped onions, broke a raw egg over it, sprinkled it with pepper and salt, then mixed it all together with a fork. I followed their examples, presuming they would now cook their meat on the hot-plate which sat beside the coffee urn.

How wrong I was! They proceeded to eat this raw mess with relish. I was horrified. But also famished. So I followed their examples and tentatively tasted the raw meat, egg, and onions. To my surprise, it was delicious!

One of the other men had been watching my reactions. He was a dark, good-looking man in his early forties, wearing jeans and a singlet. From his tan, I knew he must be some sort of laborer or construction worker. He must have realized this was far from my usual diet. Laughing, he told the others about my reactions, and they all had a good-tempered laugh at my expense.

The dark man approached me after breakfast and tried to make conversation, but I didn't catch much other than "Mein Name ist Gert" to which I responded, "My name is David." After a few other futile attempts at chat, we gave up shook hands, and said "Auf Wiedersehen."

I spent the next couple of days sight-seeing, but always there was a feeling of doom about the place. The crowds in the Kurfürstendamm, the main shopping street, seemed almost desperately busy. A trip into East Berlin by subway was just as scary, when almost everyone else got off the train before it crossed into the east, leaving me and one or two others to continue to Friedrichstrasse station with its checkpoints, barbed wire between the lines, and machine-gun-armed guards on the platforms and on catwalks high above.

The streets were mostly empty, as if people were afraid to come out of their homes, and the stores, such as the G.U.M had shiny looking goods in the windows, but nothing on the shelves inside.

I walked south through the city, planning to exit at the famous Checkpoint Charlie, but I was stopped by another armed guard. He looked at my passport and visa, and saw that I had entered through Friedrichstrasse. He insisted that I go back and go out the same way, pointing his rifle at me when I attempted to push past him and go out anyway.

The next day, after another breakfast of raw hamburger, and the friedly grins of Gert and the other working-men, I was enjoying a trip to the Berlin Zoo, until I read in the guide book that the desperate Berliners had eaten most of the animals during WWII.

But back on the Kurfürstendamm once more, I did notice that one of the adult cinemas was showing a double feature at eight that night - Joe Dallesandro in Flesh and a German movie, which from the stills and the lurid lobby posters was obviously gay porn. I decided to see both. I had heard about Joe Dallesandro! And about German gay porn!

So that night, I took myself to the movies. Flesh, the first movie of the night, was not dubbed. It was in English, with German subtitles. Nor was it cut, so we did get some lovely flashes of Joe's impressive dick. I did notice a couple of guys in the audience jerking off rather openly, and felt a little uncomfortable about it. But it wasn't until the second movie that I got my greatest surprise. I don't remember the name of the movie now, but it was basically a homo fuck fest, with no holds barred - like nothing I had ever seen in Australia or Canada or the States. This was before Linda Lovelace and Deep Throat had ever hit North American screens. And even before Paragraph 175, outlawing homosexual sex in Germany, was revoked.

I was totally embarrassed - and excited - to see guys on the screen sucking and fucking each other, and even more embarrassed to see the same thing going on all around me in the theater - guys sucking and fucking each other in the anonymity of the dark, lit only by the flickering of the screen.

I was embarrassed, but I was turned on! I even unzipped and pulled out my own dick and began to jerk off. Soon another man sat down beside me. I saw his cock was also poking out of his fly. I felt his hand grasp my cock, and responded by reaching for his. Together in the dark, we jacked each other off.

I was conscious of my cum and his splashed on my jeans as I walked back to the rooming house after the movie. I was also feeling very guilty. I wondered if I had been followed to the theater by government agents. I wondered if I were being followed right now. I glanced behind me, but it was a busy street, even at 10 at night, and no-one seemed to be paying me any attention.

But when I turned the next corner onto a lesser street and looked back, there were three men following along behind. Were they agents, or was it just chance?

Another corner. Just one man behind me now.

When I turned still another corner, the man was still behind me on the dark street. I stopped and pretended to look into the window of a closed bookstore, hoping the man would catch up and pass me, but when I glanced back, he too was looking into a store window - or pretending to.

I carried on down this dark, deserted street on which my rooming house was situated, maybe a quarter of a mile further along. With every step I was aware of another's steps behind me. As the city sounds grew softer, so the sound of the man's boots grew louder.

The footsteps grew more rapid, coming closer. I broke into a run, and so did the person behind me.

My heart was pounding when I reached the front steps of my building. I hurried up them, pulling from my pocket the house key the landlady had given me, and fumbled at the lock. I had had trouble with this key and lock already, but now that I was in a hurry it was even worse. First I couldn't get it in the keyhole, and then it stubbornly refused to turn.

I heard the boots reach the steps, climbing up the steps. In the dark doorway, the lock wouldn't budge. I wanted to scream.

But I didn't get a chance. In the darknes, a large, calloused hand closed over my mouth. The man's other arm went round my throat. There was heavy breathing by my ear, then a whispering, guttural, German voice:

"Nicht laut sprechen, David!"

My feeble German was enough to understand that I was being told not to speak out loud - and that my attacker knew my name! Scared shitless, I nodded my assent. The hold on my neck loosened, and the hand was removed from my mouth.

"Es is mir, Gert!"

The man turned me around, and in the feeble light, I saw that it was Gert, the dark, handsome man who had laughed at me at breakfast. He gave me a huge grin, and flooded with relief, I smiled back.

He spoke more rapid German to me, but I did manage to catch "cinema," "Joe Dallesandro" and "Flesh" amongst what he jabbered. I realized he too had been at the movie, and had seen me there and followed me home.

I completely understood what he was saying when he told me "Joe Dallesandro ist wunderbar!"

I also understood, without him saying so, that he was a homosexual, like me. After all, he had been at the gay porn theater.

Then he asked me "Meinst du mit Männern ficken?"

As I said, my German was poor, but there are certain words we all learn first in a foreign language: me, you, food, drink, toilet, etc - and fuck. I knew he was asking me do I fuck with men.

My heart still beating fast, but now from excitement, not fear, I told him "Ja."

Right there in the darkened doorway, he drew me to him and kissed me passionately. And I responded eagerly.

When we finally broke, he turned my key in the lock, opened the door, returned the key to me, and we stepped into the dimly lit hall and closed the door behind us. Gert took me by the hand and led me up the stairs to the third floor, not to my room, but to his own.

We hesitated at the door to his room. He looked at me with some concern and asked me quietly: "Wirst du in mein Zimmer kommen?"

I understood that he was asking me if I wanted to come into his room, and nodded "Ja." I was really horny by now and wanted this hunk of a man - and his hard cock, which was pushing the front of his jeans out.

He opened the door and ushered me inside, turning on the lights. It was a larger room than mine, and he obviously lived here on a long-term basis. There were personal items on the mantelpiece over a gas fireplace on one wall of the room and more on a chest of drawers against another wall. A window opened out onto what I guessed was the courtyard behind the building. The window in my roomed opened onto a view of the wall of the building next door.

Beside the chest of drawers there was a large duvet-covered bed, contrasting with the narrow cot in my room. Gert led me toward this. Standing beside it, we kissed once more, while I ran my hands over the impressive bulge in his jeans, I had trouble with his belt buckle, so Gert obligingly unbuckled it for me and slid down his fly. Greedily, I plunged my hand inside to grasp his rod through his underwear. I pushed him backward onto the bed and pulled his undies down below his balls to expose his thick, hard cock. I kneeled on the floor between his dangling legs.

His shaft popped free, swollen and thick, and stood there invitingly. He was circumcised, and his knob had a very pronounced mushroom head. I paused only lick away a drop of pre-cum before I opened my mouth and plunged my face down upon his waiting rod, driving it right to the back of my throat.

"Mein Gott!" Gert exclaimed. "Das ist gut!" I didn't need much German to know that he liked it.

I managed to slide his underpants and jeans further down his legs while still sucking on his cut dick, sliding my teeth over the ridge of his knob again and again. But I had to withdraw to undo his bootlaces. He lifted his legs in the air to allow me to do so, still kneeling between his legs. As I pulled off his boots and socks, and then his jeans and undies, I got a good look at his delicious balls hanging like golden fruit down toward the rosebud of his puckered asshole.

While I struggled with his jeans, Gert was sliding his black t-shirt off over his head and flung it on the floor with the rest of his clothes. He motioned for me to take off my clothes too, and breathed another "Wunderbar!" when he say me standing naked before him, my own rod long and hard.

He patted the duvet with the palm of his hand, indicating that I should climb up on the bed with him. I did so, and we kissed once more, pressing our naked bodies and our mouths together, using our tongues to explore each other's mouths.

Then he slid down my naked body as I kneeled there on the bed, licking and kissing my flesh as he went, until he reached my crotch. His mouth closed over my knob, and I felt his warmth enveloping me.

He went at my cock like he had not sucked cock in ages. He sucked and licked, nibbled and tongued, driving me crazy. When he started driving his face right down into my crotch, taking the whole length of my woody down his throat, withdrawing, then plunging down once more, again and again, I could not take it anymore. My cock erupted in his mouth, filling his mouth with my creamy juice. It seemed I couldn't stop. I kept spurting and spurting, while Gert struggled to swallow .Some of it escaped out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin onto my balls.

Finally I was done, and Gert lifted his face from my groin, some cum still on his lips and chin. He gave me another of his big grins.

"kann ich ficken dich?" he asked. I recognized the words for I and fuck again and presumed he wanted to fuck me. I nodded agreement.

Gert lay on his back on the bed, his cock standing upright. He grasped it and wiggled it, and at first I thought he wanted me to suck him some more, but when he reached to the chest of drawers to pick up a tube of some sort of creme or ointment, and rubbed some of it on his cock, I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to ride him.

And so I straddled him, kneeling, facing him. I took a little of his creme and smeared it on my hole and worked it in with a finger. Then I lowered my but down slowly, guiding his probing cock to my waiting hole. I had not been fucked in moths, and thought I might be too tight for such a thick cock, but I was ready for it. My hole seemed to know and relaxed to allow his large dick-head entry. Gert's cock slid into me easily as I sat down upon it. I could feel it moving upward into the depths of my being, filling me with its hugeness.

When I was sitting fully down upon him, I could feel his hardness all the way up me. Still impaled, I leaned forward and we were able to kiss passionately. We could continue to kiss while I alternately sat down on him and raised my rear up again, driving his dick into my ass and pulling it out once more.

We kept that up for quite a while, until my legs and thighs became sore from the awkward position. I pulled free of him, and tapped my thighs and grimaced to indicate I was hurting. Gert understood, and rolled my onto my side, my back to him. Laying beside me, he entered me once more. I lifted my upper leg to allow him better access and once more he drove his thick cock fully into me.

Gert was a strong guy, with great staying power. He pounded my ass in that position for maybe twenty minutes before he came inside me. Then we parted, and lay there, both spent.

When, at last, I rose and reached for my clothes to leave, Gert grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back onto the bed. We lay there together until he rose, turned off the lights, and came back to me again. Spooned together we drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, there was morning light coming through the window, and Gert's hard dick was prodding between my butt cheeks. I reached behind me and guided him into my hole, still wet with last night's lubricant and Gert's cum.

We fucked once more, and finished, dressed, and went together to the communal men's room and showers down the hall. We had it to ourselves. There I got rid of Gert's double load, and we showered together, not talking much, because we didn't understand what we said anyway.

We went back to Bert's room to get rid of his toiletries - which he had shared with me - before we went down for breakfast. When we came out of his room together, our landlady was in the hall. She smiled, laid her finger alongside he nose, and winked knowingly.

For the rest of my 3 months in Berlin, if I wasn't studying, and Gert wasn't working, Gert and I were inseparable. I moved into his room, saving us both money when the landlady adjusted our rent to suit. If Gert wasn't showing me new and exciting places in Berlin, we were showing each other new and exciting positions in our large bed. We never tired of fucking.

It would be nice to say that Gert and I kept in touch, but we didn't. We said our "Auf Wiedersehens" and that was it. Once, years later, when the Berlin Wall came down, I'm sure I saw him being interviewed as part of a demolition crew on a news broadcast. I tried to get in touch with him then, but failed.

Today I went to where the run-down old rooming house once stood. It is gone. Where Gert and I did so much wonderful fucking, a gleaming Mercedes-Benz showroom stands.

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