Somewhere in the middle of the country, somewhere with an outcrop of the local State University, graduate students like me will be going for a Master's in American History during the week, and making for Alonso's at the weekend. Oh, did I say? English graduate students like me. That says several things, like, Cambridge at 18, Illinois State at 22; Brit accent gets toned down. And one other thing which we'll come across in a moment.

The music is still fairly low, and it is a Saturday night in January. It's early and I am nursing a beer. With luck I will go home with someone nice, if not, I'll go home on my own. Let's see how it plays. There aren't many guys in here so far. I'm early tonight. Now, you have to understand that after a few months going to the usual bar, you mostly know who's who, also who's whose. Like, Danny the barkeep is very pretty and sometimes late on a Saturday you get to see him dancing naked in the disco. He is Alonso's and entirely faithful, at least if you want to drink here again. And then there is the new guy. Never seen him before.

The bar is a horseshoe, and he and I are sitting opposite, at the narrow end. He grins at me. He is sitting with a beer in front of him. So am I. He is maybe twenty-seven, twenty-eight? Short dark hair, and he hasn't shaved before he came out tonight. He has seriously dirty eyes. Now, you don't always get that in America. Some Americans want it to be you that makes the move. This guy has the look that says, let's find out about this. I picked up my beer, raised the glass to him and moved halfway round the bar. He raised his glass to me and did the same, so we were standing next to each other, on the curve of the horseshoe. He was looking me up and down, appraising me, and I didn't mind one bit, because I was doing the same thing back.

And he was the guy from the DVD. Maybe you know it, somewhere in the backwoods two guys in a truck pull up at the gas station, see the sign "Full Service". A very hot, dark, stocky young guy in gas company uniform comes down and takes them into the barn where he and a slightly older guy give them exactly that. Afterwards they drive away. Sure you've seen it, course you have. Well, this wasn't exactly the guy from the DVD, but pretty damn close, and we are in Urbana, Illinois, not Assfuck, Oregon. And he is standing in front of me, looking good.

So I say, 'Hi.'

And he says, 'I was hoping for, "Good Evening".'

Ah! Games. I can do that. 'OK, Good Evening.'

'I was right, then, you're English? I heard it when you ordered your beer.'

'Sure. But my teeth are good.' And I smile. And they are.

He laughs. 'I'm Robert.'

'Steven.'

And we go through the bit, which somehow you never get on the DVD and which frankly you don't need if where we are going is his room or mine, how I'm from London and he's from somewhere a bit west of here, how there are worse towns than Urbana, and worse bars than this. And then he sort of derails the conversation.

'English,' he says, slowly. 'Like, good teeth but not circumcised?' He has been watching my face, and he says, 'I think I hit a button, there.'

Correct. It's an English, well, a British thing. I've been in this town since September, and I have had very pleasant moments. Very, very pleasant. In the early 21^st Century, uncut is kind of fashionable. I am not the only uncut guy I know. Two other English guys, one African-American and a Canadian. We once all did brunch followed by an uncut orgy, but we are uncut guys in a sea of mostly circumcised Americans. Like the guy at the gas station on the DVD. Like all the guys on the DVD. Like all the guys on all the DVDs. Now, why is that?

And some of us, some of us have always wondered why guys were cut, and what it would be like to be cut. That's not just to have been cut. It's what being cut right now would be like. And the guy sitting next to me reaches down below the bar where Danny can't see, and finds my dick in my jeans and presses down on the head. He can feel it swell a little, and he can also feel my foreskin moving.

'Tell me about the button I hit?'

'Are you cut?' I have to ask.

'We could go somewhere and you could find out. Or you could think why I asked about the button I hit.' He presses harder. I don't quite know why I'm not finding the hill in his jeans and pressing back.

'Are you offering me something?'

'You never asked what I do for a living.'

'Nor did you. It's sort of bad manners.'

'I sell surgical equipment to General Practitioners.'

I saw the future. And I shook. He watched me.

'I think it's your place, then,' he said.

'I shouldn't be doing this.'

'You're right, Steve. But I think you are going to take me home. Even though you shouldn't.'

'Oh, fuck.'

'Maybe not tonight. I don't think you'll want to, tonight.'

'Robert. What do I want tonight?'

'Take me home and find out.'

Now, listen to me, this is dangerous. Never, never do it. Never take a guy home unless you know what he wants and what you want, too. Trouble is, really, sitting there in Alonso's we both do. Me since the moment he looked at me and said 'English,' slowly. Him since a microsecond before that.

But I say, 'Let's go back to my place and you can show me your surgical equipment.' Oh, Steve, Steve!

So we pay Danny. We walk out to Robert's van. I'm only a couple of blocks away, but we drive there. As I get out, I notice he has taken something from behind my seat. It's not a doctor's bag, more a salesman's sample case. I can remember the combination for the front door of the block, but I have a lot of trouble getting the key in the lock for my apartment. Then we are in the hallway.

'Steven, how much have you had to drink tonight?'

'Just the beer you saw me drinking. And you?'

'The same. Why did I ask?'

'Because you want me to be sober tonight.' I know exactly. 'I want you to be sober, too. Same reason. One Heineken is OK?'

'One Heineken is just fine. And now you are going to strip. Not strip tease, just strip. When you are naked, I will show you what's in this case. Go into your bedroom, if you want.' And somehow, I do. We aren't going to fuck tonight, but I need him to see me naked. And, oh, he knows it. He is playing me like you play a salmon.

When I come back out I stand before him. I am twenty-three years old and I know damn well I look good stripped so I do it with pride.

And he looks at me and says, 'You look great as you are.'

'Make me look better, Robert.' It's almost a whisper.

'Well, I promised.' He opens the case and inside are a lot of bits and pieces of medical kit. But only one set is in sterile packaging, the rest is for demonstration purposes only. 'This is a Gomco Clamp kit,' he says. 'My company doesn't actually sell it, but from time to time I've found a use for it.'

'I've never heard of it. What does it do, Robert?'

'You know what it does, Steve. Tell me what it does.'

He opens the packaging and holds up the clamp.

'Circumcision.' Now I really am whispering.

'How does it do that, Steve?'

'I don't know, you'll have to show me.'

'OK, Steve. But you need to understand. This is not a game. This is real. Some time very soon comes the point of no return.'

'I want that, Robert.' And so does he, oh, I know that as surely as he knows about me.

I stand in front of him. He slips back my foreskin. It rides a long way back. It's clean right into the furrow, I know, because I know how carefully I shower. He gives a little whistle. 'Steve, this is beautiful, are you sure?'

'Oh, yes. Aren't you?'

'It's going to hurt.'

'Maybe it's meant to.'

'Ah.'

Then he takes the clamp and applies it. My foreskin is tight back and the bell goes over my cock-head. It is cold, well, it's been sitting in a cold car in an Illinois winter. It feels right. He rolls my foreskin over the bell and under the ring.

'We could stop here, Steve?'

'But we aren't going to, Robert.'

He starts to turn the nut at the other end of the shaft. It pulls the ring down on to the bell. I feel it begin to bite

'Stop now?'

'No, go on.'

'Sure?'

'No! But go on.'

More turns of the nut.

'Last Chance Saloon. I can stop now and you keep your skin. It'll be marked but you keep it.'

It was really a groan. 'Robert. It's yours. Take my skin.' And he turns the nut one more turn.

Unless you have felt your foreskin sheared in a clamp, believe me, you can't really imagine it. There is a moment when it is alive, the last chance saloon, like he said.

And then, 'Point of no return, Steve.' And you can see it turn grey. Like he says, 'Point of No Return.' And I'll tell you two things. One is, only do this with someone you trust. Two, don't believe anyone who says it doesn't hurt. It is meant to hurt. But oh, Jesus, it's the hurt I wanted.

Robert takes a scalpel from his sterile kit and slits the dead skin away from the clamp. After a few minutes he takes off the clamp and puts in sutures. He has bandages and stuff, honestly I am so high on what had happened I don't I need Tylenol or whatever. What do they call them, endorphins? And Robert stays with me, there in my bed all night. Fully dressed - OK, he'd been right. A fuck is out of the question.

Just before he left, I ask him the question I'd asked before, is he cut?

He smiles at me. 'Have you heard of the Phantom Cutter?'

'No.'

'Maybe not. He mostly operates on the East Coast. He is the guy uncut American boys don’t want to meet.' Then he laughs. 'Or maybe some of us do. Well, I'll tell you, I want to meet him. I want his skin, and maybe he wants mine!'

As good an answer as I was ever going to get.