Nate Pendulum: (Lemon Lollipops and beer).

“So, do you really think your friend will have Mandy thirsty enough to throw caution to the wind?” asked Cindy.

You stop your car at the cross roads and check the intersection before turning into a less than salubrious part of the campus. The University was the size of a small city and a certain number of vehicles were necessary but they were rare. Still, you never quite knew what was coming around the corner at Shoubu.

You glance over at Cindy. Lucas wasn’t available until later in the evening and Cindy had wanted to see what your plan entailed so she had tagged along. Currently her gym plimsols were on the floor and her bare feet were resting on the dashboard. She was reclining in her seat and gently sucking on a lemon flavoured dum-dum lollipop. For a girl that given the circumstances was meant to be avoiding the male gaze she was having a hard time supressing her natural vivacious sexuality.

You put thoughts of what could have been if you had sacked off Lucas last night and left with Cindy when she had first propositioned you, out of your head and answer her question.

“His name is Nate Pendulum and he has been known to be a charmer with the ladies in his time. I trust him. He's helped me with more than a few cases over the years. Although not for a while now.”

“His name is Pendulum?" snorted Cindy amused. “What kind of last name is that?”

You throw her a sideways glance. “Are you planning on majoring in onomastics or something? The weirdness in this place and that catches your attention?”

You stop the car at a pedestrian crossing and as if to prove your point about Shoubu weirdness, three male students cross. The first two normal enough but the third with a truly giant head and overall proportionated like a life-sized bobble-head doll, his head swaying this way and that. You both watch them cross silently. Cindy gives the lollipop a slow lick with the tip of her tongue before shrugging. “It’s just an unusual name. I bet his C.V. will stand out when he gets to the outside world.”

“Unlikely” you say. You take the opportunity to light up a cigarette before setting off again. “Nate can never leave Shoubu University grounds again.”

“Ever?” says Cindy surprised.

“Ever. Till the day he dies.” you reply. “He lost a GAME about twelve years ago. He won’t say exactly what the GAME was or what he could have stood to win. He’s always been a bit sensitive about it. He’s always refused my offers to look into the matter and I’ve never really had the heart to scroll through his old GAMES and check either. Some things are just private to a man.”

“Awwwww Mason” cooed Cindy “so you do have a sentimental side.” You are pretty sure she was only being half sarcastic.

“Well Nate’s helped me out more than once and I wouldn’t want to pry into his affairs unwanted.”

“So how come he doesn’t use another GAME or PRIZE Tokens or whatever to leave?” asked Cindy.

“Impossible” you state. “His opponent was some PhD Logic major. A real genius savant by all accounts. He wrote the LOSE condition like a massive piece of code or legal text. Clauses, sub clauses, fail safes to prevent circumvention, all knotted together. I won’t give you the full chapter and verse about the situation but after Nate graduated Shoubu’s faculty didn’t exactly want Nate to stay. Over the years the finest minds at the University, and I am talking about tenured professors not students mind, looked for ways to break LOSE condition and they all drew a blank. And so, Nate’s been stuck on campus for the last twelve years.”

“Shit” said Cindy sadly. “That’s rough. Does he ever get to see his family. From the outside world at all?”

“Uhm’ dunno. He never talks about them,” you say noncommittally. Family and the outside world was a subject you wanted to avoid yourself.

“What about this PhD student, that WON the GAME, what happened to him?” Cindy asks.

“Not sure” you say. “Last I heard I think he was working for NASA or Oracle or some tech firm or other.”

You’re both silent for a couple of minutes. You take a long drag of your cigarette. Outside your car the streets of Shoubu are slick with afternoon rain and the buildings in the neighbourhood are all shabby affairs. Not quite having run into disrepair but certainly having seen better days. This is not a part of the campus that has seen much academic interest in many years.

Presently Cindy says “we kind of got off the point. Is Nate really that good with women?”

“Well, I don’t know if anyone is that good. We are talking about trying to get a broad so wet she forgets she could become a ****, after all. But if we want to take the shot, it’s worth Nate taking it.”

“How come?” asked Cindy.

“Well two reasons. In the first place he’s been in Shoubu a long time. Now he still gets a small stipend of PRIZE Tokens from his original admission’s scholarship but it’s not exactly keeping him in the lap of luxury. He isn’t actually a student anymore and he never joined the Faculty so he’s had to take on different jobs to make ends meet. The long and short of it is that a few years ago he was a gigalo. And a very successful one.

“He was a male prostitute?” says Cindy.

“I think he preferred the term male-escort, but yeah essentially. I guess. It wasn’t always directly PRIZE Tokens for sex though. There were female lecturers, professors and whatnot who wanted to be shown a good time by a charming young man. Wined and dined, good conversation, affirmation, seduction. You get the idea. He got pretty good at it as well. At one point he was being invited to pretty much every faculty party. Loads of those academic vixens were all over him.”

Cindy gives a small chuckle, “anyone I know?”

“Yeah” you nod, ashing your cigarette out of the window. “Floriana Cantu for one.”

“Shut UP!” exclaims Cindy with a shocked laugh, punching your arm. “Professor Cantu has not used a male escort!! Why would she need to?”

“Like I say it wasn’t just about the sex. He was good at parties.” You’re silent for a moment. And then you clarify, “actually strictly speaking I don’t know for sure that Professor Cantu used Nate in his capacity as a man-whore but I know for a fact he slept with her around that time.”

Cindy rolls her eyes and shakes her head at your exaggeration about her tutor.

“Point is back in the day he had a way with the ladies. It’s not something he is so into "professionally" anymore but I’ve seen him out and about. Even these days he can still put on the moves when he wants to.”

You pull the car up at your destination and turn off the engine.

“Ok” says Cindy “but you said there were two reasons he would be my best shot at winning against Mandy in this GAME. What’s the second reason?”

You shoot a finger at the sign of the building you’re parked next to. The sign was a mix of neon pink and blue with a black background. It showed the outline of three males wearing G-strings in provocative poses. The name of the bar was “Worker Bees.”

“He’s a stripper?” asked Cindy looking up at the sign.

“Bingo. Well, he was a stripper after his escort phase. And after his thieving phase, but that was something different. Anyway, he became a stripper as it was less pressure than escorting he said. He’s been in and out of it for a while. I lost touch with him over a year or so ago, but last I heard this is where he was working. To answer your question about the second reason, he has an asset that has made him a star attraction at more than one bar he worked at if you catch my drift.”

“He has a big cock” says Cindy bluntly. It wasn’t a question.

“You could say that, but it wouldn’t really do it justice. You wait in the car,” you say removing the keys from the ignition.

“Not a chance” she replies. “If some guy is taking the biggest shot of my life on my behalf, then I want to meet him.” You think about arguing further but decide to acquiesce. Instead, you reach over and take the yellow lollipop out of Cindy’s mouth and throw it out the window.

“Hey!” she protests.

“The types of dudes who run these places aren’t exactly known around campus for being morally upstanding members of the community. The last thing we need is them taking an interest in the fine piece of Latina tail by my side, then scanning your GT, seeing the GAME and organising an impromptu bukkake party out back.”

“You didn’t have to bring race into it you know?” she says.

“No, but I did anyway. So how about we tone down the flirty school-girl vibe? You know, for the afternoon anyway.”

You get out of the car, dropping and stamping out your smoke as you go, and go around to Cindy’s side. “But is it really going to make a difference?” asks Cindy as you open the door for her.

“Your flirting? Yeah, I should think so.”

“No! Nates cock. I’ve seen big cocks before and I have no doubt a hoe like Mandy has seen dozens. They can be nice but they don’t make me immediately want to cream myself.”

“True, but you don’t have aspirations of being a size-queen dominatrix. After I met Mandy this afternoon, I scanned her GT and took the time to go through her recent GAMEs before the current one as well as her sexual history. For a while now she’s been experimenting with a new kink. She’s wanting to find guys with big dicks that she can boss around, cuck. dominate that kind of thing. She gets off on it. I think she’s been practicing with Sam.”

“Sam has a big dick?” Cindy asks and then hastily follows up, “not that I care.”

You ignore what she just blurted out and continue. “Also, Nate's isn’t like any dick you’ve seen before. It does tricks.”

“Tricks?” she said puzzled.

“You’ll see.”

*****************************************************************************************************************

At this time in the afternoon there were only two strippers dancing; a pair of Asian guys in suits performing a very drawn-out strip tease on the main stage. A couple of bored older women and a single student who had his eyes glued to his phone were their only audience. You order a beer for each of you. Cindy is casually leaning by the bar as you talk to Clive the manager-come-barman. He’s a bear of a man standing at least six foot seven with a massive red beard and gruff demeanour.

“Nate Pendulum? That name sounds made up,” he says in answer to your question about Nate’s whereabouts. You ignore Cindy’s smirk and knowing look.

“You have to know him. About six foot two, white, shaved head, good physique, looks about 28 but he’s actually 34. Massive cock,” you say exasperated.

“Dude that describes basically every guy we hire. Apart from the black guys of course and the two Asian fellas up there.” he nods towards the dancers “Not they aren’t well hung you understand miss” Clive says smiling at Cindy. “They have it where it counts if you catch my drift.”

“I do Clive,” she smiles thinly. “Could I get another beer please?”

He nods and turns to the fridge behind the bar. When he returns you bring him back to the point at hand.

“Nate has a really big dick. He does the tricks…?” you say with a circular motion of your hand indicating Clive should be able to fill in the blanks.

The strip club manager looks at you puzzled for a moment and then his eyes widen in realisation “Oh! ‘Monsieur Horse Cock’? The ‘Shower AND the Grower!’”

“Yes!” you say.

Clive taps his head at a new understanding. “I get now why he was always wanting to be billed as ‘The Great Flesh Pendulum’. Sorry for the confusion pal, I rarely learn the name of the performers. Turnover is so quick.”

“That’s ok and glad to clear up that naming convention mystery. So, when is he coming in next?” you say.

“Oh, he ain’t coming in. He quit about 9 months ago. Said he didn’t want to do sex work no more. Said it was degrading. But I don’t see nothing degrading about it. Good PRIZE Tokens to be made. Said he was going to do something more legit. I think he got a job working as a courier. I was sad to see the ‘Leaning Tower of Pisa’ go.” Clive turns to Cindy again “There’s a reason we called him that. See Tuesdays was Pizza night and what we did is have him lie horizontal on the stage and...”

“Ok Clive” you say interjecting “that’s been really helpful and I think you just cleared up what Nate saw as degrading as well. Say you wouldn’t have a forwarding address for Nate would you?

Clive was evasive about this until you throw him some PRIZE Tokens and the forwarding address was duly given.

*****************************************************************************************************************

One hour and one detour to speak with Nate’s manager at the courier service to find out Nate’s favourite after work dining spot later and you are sliding into a table booth in a Turkish Bistro. Opposite was Nate Pendulum just beginning to tuck into a dürme wrap. He looks surprised to see you.