Getting the guy. Good luck with that. It’s not as easy at is seems.
Then again, maybe it is…
*
The number one way to get the guy: Jump when you are called on to jump. And jump high. Real high.
“Brody, I need you,” Roarke said, his voice wavering with nervousness.
It was nice to be needed by a man. What gay guy didn’t want that? “Where and when?”
“247 Mossdale Street. Two o’clock this afternoon.”
“I’ll be there. Count on it.”
Before I ended our cell phone conversation, he hurriedly asked, “Do you have any lime green underwear?”
I chuckled, grinning from ear to ear. “I do.”
“Wear those this afternoon. Can you do that?”
I could and would, excited to see him again.
*
Springtime in the city. The time for lust, great sex, and love, if you’re lucky. A colorful period between men who find other men attractive on various levels: physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally. Love happens to the best of us, when we least expect it, of course. I’ve heard if you don’t look for it, it will happen within seconds, blowing you away. It happened to all my white collar friends: Ricky, James, Patrick, and Blaine. The winter thawed, the season changed, the sun came out to play, and men started to fall in love again, young and old. Even with me.
Love didn’t happen to me until Roarke came along. Roarke Stephen McDixon with his ginger hair, muscular frame, fall-into green eyes, and chest covered in curly fur. Six-three Roarke with his GQ smile and charm, model-perfect and with a modern haircut, and a tight bottom that could have rocked the world off its axis. I could ramble about Roarke for the next four thousand two hundred and ninety-three pages but won’t. Instead, I have some assistant work to accomplish, a “dog job,” as I used to call it. Listen…
*
I was spoiled at twenty-eight, living in Los Angeles. My company was called Best Assets, a qualified agency that supplied business executives with competent assistants, not temporary positions at low scale paying jobs. My clients were professional men and women who were usually college graduates and experienced regarding work among white collars in the world, plus they had exceptional drives.
My company matched employable people with appropriate executives, concentrating on both parties’ interests. For instance, Jude Barr was a curator at the Robindaux Gallery in West Hollywood. I paired him with Gregory Sander, a graduate from UCLA with a business degree and an interest / background in art. The pairing was just one success of many my staff and I had created. Best Assets processed approximately fourteen employees a week, matching those bright-eyed women and men to hardworking executives and established companies. All in all, my own company did well. I was living in a nice one-bedroom bungalow near Beverly Hills and wasn’t starving like some people in the world.
April of last year was a little rocky, though. Bea LeCarre, my vice president and right arm in the company, needed a week because her older sister passed away in a horrible boating accident somewhere in the South of France. And Michael Chentar, my glue and everything-guy at Best Assets, went missing the same week, lost in the jungles of South America with a male tour guide named Juan Cinco. I honestly think the guy was his boyfriend, but it wasn’t any of my business. Anyway, Michael and Bea were both out of the country and other staff members were doing their own jobs. I had some slack to pick up and…
Roarke McDixon rushed into my world, blowing me away. He entered my office unannounced and unscheduled. I usually didn’t concentrate on what men wore, the complete opposite of a fashion diva, but Roarke looked attractive in his tight pair of beige jeans, burgundy Italian loafers, and white cotton dress shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned to the middle of his chest and showed off ginger fur and solid pecs. Some of the material pulled away from one of his pecs when he leaned over my desk, exposing one pink nipple. His chest wasn’t bronze like most La Landers, but I knew that reds didn’t tan easily because of their Irish genes, not that I minded or judged.
“Brody Neilson?” he asked, eyeing me up and down, taking all of me in: brown hair, muscular build with no fat, bright blue eyes, clean-shaven, five-eleven frame, and no earrings or tattoos.
I usually didn’t have visitors, family, or clients in my office since it looked like a pigsty. Had Bea been working, Roarke never would have made it out of the foyer. “Yes, I’m Brody. Who are you?” I already knew who he was but wanted to humor him. Who didn’t know Roarke McDixon and his bathroom photographs? He wasn’t world-famous, but he was quite popular along California’s coast.
“Roarke McDixon.” He said his name, holding out his right hand for a shake. Then he told me what he did for a living.
What a weird name: Roarke McDixon. Strange. But I liked it. Hell, he could have been named Merlin Mudd for I all cared, into his red hair, freckles, and Popeye muscles. Damn, the guy was fucking hot, unbearable to look at.
*
Number two: Know what the guy does, if you give a shit, of course.
Truth told, I was very familiar with Roarke’s professional photographs of bathrooms. His work could be found in Architectural Digest, Town and Country, and in a heavily priced coffee table book titled Bathroom Beauties, which was oversized, comprised of two hundred and thirty colored plates of exquisite restrooms in Key West, New York City, Saddle Ridge, Malibu, and Houston. Roarke was not an amateur by any means and had made well over three hundred thousand dollars a year from his photography.
Some viewers didn’t know about his edgier work in back alley basement bathrooms, subway latrines, public urinals in seedy bars. He was selective, of course, and good at what he did. A prodigy with his camera and subjects. For every high-end bathroom photograph he had been paid for, Roarke had twenty crud-infested ones that could have been considered disgusting but quite artsy, challenging to one’s mind, and gasp-taking.
We had a drink together in my office because I needed one: whiskey sours. Then he told me he wanted an assistant with a background in photography. “My current assistant, Marcus Shore, decided to fall in love with a Saudi. Marcus moved to the Middle East. The two men look adorable together and will make the perfect couple, but their arrangement isn’t going to help my career.”
I wanted to tell him that I too was in a bind because Bea and Michael were not in the country, able to help me. Bad business entailed offering secrets of the trade, which I didn’t want to share at the moment. Therefore, I kept my trap shut about my company’s lack of help and asked, “How soon do you need an assistant?”
“Preferably tomorrow morning. I have a shoot to attend at a nearby mansion that overlooks the Pacific. Can you help me out?”
I couldn’t help him out, but he didn’t need to know that. But I would never turn down business and cash in my pocket, particularly from such a handsome and rock-solid red. “I can help you,” I said, deciding to execute the job and position myself, since no one on my staff was currently available.
“Make sure the person has a background in photography, Brody. I want tomorrow to go smooth.”
“Of course. And of course.”
He winked at me, which melted my world and maybe caused me to fall for him on the spot. I didn’t believe in love at first sight, but something strange rocked within my chest. And my blood pressure rose as my eyes met his, sealing together. Silence hung between us like an unresolved mystery until he finally reached for my hand, shook it, and clarified the address of tomorrow’s bathroom shoot.
When Roarke left my office, he shifted his bulbous ass to the right and left, but not on purpose. Frankly, it was an ass I wanted to hold with both hands, rolling my palms against. And it was an ass that caused my dick to bounce with life, becoming semi-hard as he was leaving.
Over his left shoulder, he called, “Tomorrow morning. Ten.”
I repeated what he had said and added, “I’ll be there. No need to worry.”
*
Number three: Know the guy’s issues, whether they are big or small.
There was one Herculean-sized problem about working for Roarke McDixon. I didn’t know jack about photography. Of course, I was a member of Instagram and Pinterest, but those photographs had been stolen from the Internet. The only picture I had ever taken that could have been considered worthy was of Bea and Michael standing in my office, grinning and posing. The photograph looked cheesy and ridiculous as they shared a bogus hug, and lacked any sense of professionalism and art about it. In fact, it was somewhat blurred. The worst of the worst pictures ever taken by any man.
I hadn’t slept at all the night before the bathroom shoot. Getting Roarke out of my head was next to impossible, I was so caught up in his handsomeness and charm. All I could recall throughout the night was his wink, maybe wooing me the way one man deserves to be wooed by another man, even a stranger.
My Roarke-invaded insomnia didn’t stop there, though. Not in the least. I imagined him entering my bedroom in a pair of tight white briefs and nothing more, exposing his muscled and hairy chest. He leaned into my bedroom’s door frame, tilted his head to the right, sort of chuckled, and said, “You don’t know a damn thing about photography, do you, Brody?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“More than obvious. Not that it matters, though, since you’re a fine-looking man. Plus you have some substance, which I like.”
“What kind of substance?” I tested him, seeing if he had learned me as much as I had learned him.
“You like cats over dogs, you’re obsessed with lottery tickets, and you enjoy the rain over sun.”
“Nicely done,” I said.
“And something tells me you like the company of men over women,” he said, grabbing the junk between his legs and giving it a tug. “Plus you fall in love rather quickly.”
“I can’t deny any of those facts.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
I was rolled over in the dream, facedown on my bed, and my underwear pulled away and off. Before I knew what was happening, Roarke had his nose and mouth against my bottom. His fingers and palms separated my behind and he darted his tongue inside me, pulled away, and darted inside again, teasing me. He growled behind me, hungry, and became relentless, continuing to pleasure me. When he eventually pulled his face away from my rear, he rolled two fingertips down and over my opening, growled again, and spanked one of my ass cheeks.
I became lost, kneeling with my legs ever so slightly spread apart. “Spank me again,” I coached, practically begging for his play. “Don’t be shy, Roarke. I’m all yours.”
Again, his mouth met my bottom. As licks and laps ensued, I moaned with deep satisfaction and felt him wrap his right hand around my erection. He rolled his hand up and down on my dick, milking it. The action sent me into a spin of satisfaction. Hurriedly, his hand became chaotic motion on my cock, leaving me gasp for air, dizzy in front of him.
“I like you a little too much, Brody,” he said, after pulling his face away from my bottom.
I thrust my dick inside his hand, and my ass against his face. After a string of minutes under his care, sent into a state of euphoria, I said, “You’re making me come.”
“Don’t hold back. Show me what you have, man.”
And so it was done. I felt a wave of enjoyment flood throughout my torso and between my legs. Vibrations of bliss blew me away, under the photographer’s spell, which I didn’t argue with or object to.
“Do it, Brody. Put on a show for me.”
After his comment, white strings of semen blew out of my dick and coated my bed. One burst was followed by the next, leaving me exhausted on my knees and overcome with pleasure. The sticky explosion not only decorated the bed, but it also decorated his palm and fingers, leaving the man thrilled to be my sexual companion, getting me off and…
I woke from the dream with a gluey dick between my legs. “It was just a dream, Brody,” I said to myself, staring into the dark room. “Roarke isn’t interested in you that way. Whatever happens tomorrow should be professional. You can’t cross that sexual line because you’ll make a fool out of yourself. Even if you like the guy. Even if you’ve fallen in love with him at first sight.”
My center was covered with ejaculate. Puddles lined my abs and pecs. Perspiration drenched my torso and thighs. Breathless, attempting to calm down, I whispered inside the room, “Roarke has you. And you want him too. It’s more than lust you have for the guy. It’s something more potent. You know it is.”
*
Number four: Expect the worst. Guys can be assholes, in and out. Don’t ever think they are Prince Charming, because you’re only letting yourself down. Don’t bother. Keep your expectations low. If the guy just happens to blow you away, remember that with every good side comes a bad.
Before meeting with Roarke the next morning, I googled his work. Professionally speaking, he had photographed over one thousand bathrooms in the last four years. Oriental. Jungle-themed. Royal. College. Western. All gold. Outdoor. His photographs were stunning, in my opinion. He used light and shadows as vehicles for his observing eye. His colors were rich and refined. He had gone through five major thematic periods in his career: Tidal Wave Blue, Icelandic, Bamboo, and Granite. Shorter periods included marbles, sunflower yellow tiles, and Incan pitchers. No matter what theme he had taken on, sharing it with his clients, architectural firms, the media, and his fans in the art world, Roarke McDixon was always successful, never failing at anything—even landing me.
His last shoot was in an L.A. magazine called Golden Gate Skyline. The six-page spread depicted an eye-appealing bathroom from the Fritz Manker Estate. The bathroom was to die for, with black marble flooring, bronze hardware, a claw-foot bathtub, and triangular-shaped shower. The massive floor-to-ceiling bathroom windows looked over the Pacific.
I wanted to get to know Roarke better; the man’s ins and out, everything about him. His soft edges and hard-boiled nature. His emotional likings and dispassionate moments. I wanted to get inside Roarke, beyond his physical appearance and the creation of his bathrooms. Who was behind the stunning bathrooms and their photographed brilliance? What was?
*
Number five: Sometimes it’s necessary to play dumb with the guy you want. What do you have to lose, right? Games are important, particularly those that will bring you closer to the guy, and maybe even under him.
I couldn’t be late if my life depended on it and arrived on time at 1683 Fairbanks Street. The house was massive, just as I expected: Guggenheim-shaped, lots of windows, bamboo, granite, and all in light blue and white. The residence was three floors high and approximately six thousand square feet.
Roarke’s Fusion sat in front of the place. Of course the man had a budget for a Jag, but he was environmentally cautious, which I respected about him. I parked my GMC truck by his car, climbed out, and made my way into the weirdly shaped mansion. “Hello?” I called out in the library-like foyer, but nobody answered.
The ceiling was too high, and there were too many books, most of which I believed were fakes. I walked out of the foyer and studied marble tile and Russian crystal everywhere, from floor to the high ceiling. The dining room could have easily sat twenty-four people. To the right of the dining room was a smoking room with a bar. All the walls were decorated with Van Goghs under glass, none of which were originals, of course: The Orchard, The Zouve, The Chair and Pipe, Road with Cypresses, Old Man in Grief, and The Meadow.
Thus far, Roarke was unaccounted for, so I decided to follow a spiral staircase to the second floor, which was comprised of massive bedrooms, a study, a private library, and four bathrooms. “Hello?” I called out again. “Roarke, are you here?”
Roarke was nearby, though. I heard a shower running and the familiar sound of a camera clicking. Flashes of bright-white light illuminated the hallway I was in, outside the bathroom where I believed Roarke was located. I walked down the hallway, passed two bedrooms the size of the Pentagon, and came to the third bedroom. When I walked inside, Roarke said, “Good morning, Mr. Neilson. You’re right on time.”
We shook hands and eyed each other up and down. Then he said, “I had the craziest dream about you last night.”
“What kind of dream?” I asked.
He had a stainless-steel thermos and passed me a Styrofoam cup of coffee. As I took it, I looked around the exquisite bathroom for the first time. Bright yellows were mixed with gold and white, and it looked somewhat French with a Louis XIV settee, mirrors all around, and white marble flooring with swirls of gold. A spray of water streamed out of an elaborately designed S-shaped showerhead. I knew the water’s temperature was warm, but not scalding, since the bathroom was steamy. Frankly, the room looked somewhat feminine and expensive. Anyone with taste would have gone mad over it.
“Never mind. We can maybe get into my dream later.”
I studied the bathroom and asked, “Who owns this place?”
“Melinda Moretell.”
“The Melinda Moretell?” She was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses and shot movies with only A-list actors like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Bradley Cooper.
“She’s the one. This is the smallest property she owns. She has a few around the United States.”
I thought I was dreaming until Roarke asked, “Can you please run down to my Fusion and get the Quora.”
I didn’t know a Quora from a collie, and he knew it. “The lens. It’s shaped like an oval.”
I bolted to the Fusion in the front lot, zoomed back to his side, and passed him the oversized lens. He pointed to a black leather case and asked for a shutter release.
“A what?” I was bombing miserably. Shame on me for saying I was someone I wasn’t. Damn.
He chuckled, though, playing my game. “You know nothing about photography, do you, Brody?”
“Listen, I thought I could help you. It’s a little more complex than what I imagined.” I sounded defensive but didn’t mean to.
“Not to worry. Your company alone is enough to make me have a great day. I have this funny feeling we’re going to spend some quality time together, for maybe a long time.”
I felt flattered by his comment, warm and fuzzy. Being liked by a guy was one of the best feelings, even if it was a professional relationship.
He grabbed the shutter whatever it was from his equipment box and said, “Brody, I want to try something different today during this shoot.”
“What kind of something?” I sounded naïve and ridiculous, like someone who was twelve years old instead of someone in his late twenties.
“How would you feel about letting me take a few pictures of you in the shower?”
*
Number six: Step out of your comfort zone for a change. Guys like this. Become unexpected. Get a little wild. Roar.
So what did I do? Something that wasn’t in my job description. I stripped down to boxer-briefs in front of Roarke, showed off my chest, thighs, and my cotton-covered ass. It was sort of a slow striptease act for his pleasure and mine. Then I climbed into the shower and posed under the warm spray, grinned from ear to ear, flexed my muscles, and rolled my hands up and down my chest.
Roarke clicked, clicked, and clicked his digital camera. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’ve done this before.”
“Never,” I replied, and pulled the rim of my underwear down, showing off part of my right thigh and wet ass, which he didn’t complain about.
“Take them off, but only if you want.”
I didn’t, and wouldn’t…at least for a few weeks. Truth told, I fell for Roarke hard that day, head over heels for the man, and didn’t want to come across as easy. I kept my underwear on during the bathroom shoot and for five more dates after that first photography gig. Thereafter, he ended up taking me on more shoots, and I teased him with my body, showing him a little more of my private parts each time, soaping my chest down with lather, sporting my bottom for him once, and making myself semi-hard for him, playing with my dick through my cotton underwear.
I admit, I treated our dates like a game, and maybe I shouldn’t have. I should have taken him and his career a little more serious. I knew he didn’t take men to his photography gigs on a regular basis, and he made me feel special because he did like to take me. Frankly, if I wanted the guy to like me more, and for keeps, I had to get serious.
But he enjoyed our game as much as I did. I knew that. And maybe he knew that, too, because he called me up last Saturday afternoon and said, “Brody, I need you.” His voice wavered with nervousness.
It was nice to be needed by a man. What gay guy didn’t want that? “Where and when?”
“247 Mossdale Street. Two o’clock this afternoon.”
“I’ll be there. Count on it.”
Before I ended our cell phone conversation, he hurriedly asked, “Do you have any lime green underwear?”
I chuckled, grinning from ear to ear. “I do.”
“Wear those this afternoon. Can you do that?”
I could and would, excited to see him again.
*
And then it happened, in West Hollywood, inside an artist’s bathroom. A professional job between us had turned into an unprofessional job. To tell you the truth, I can’t even remember what the bathroom looked like because Roarke kissed me and things got out of hand. He turned on the shower and stripped me, and then I stripped him, and we ended up under the spray together.
Once in the shower, we started kissing under the spray. The kissing we shared with each other was intense, potent, and passionate, the kind of kissing maybe only lovers shared, investing their lives, minds, and hearts into each other.
And while we kissed, he grabbed the bar of soap from the tiled shelf and rolled it up and over my back, then down my back and against my ass. By then I was as hard as granite, ready for whatever else was going to happen between us, which I had a funny feeling was going to be very exciting. Afterward, he pulled away from me ever so slightly and rolled the bar up and down my chest, over my swollen pecs and nipples, having the time of his life, judging by the adorable grin smeared over his handsome face. He decided to soap up one of my thighs, then the other, and said, “Rinse off. I have something planned for you.”
On his knees with his palms clamped to my hips, he sucked me. He moved his head to and fro, causing euphoria to shift throughout my entire body. He slurped and sucked and banged his face off my center, moaned a few times, and pleasured the both of us for the next few minutes inside the shower.
When did he spin me and spread my cheeks with his fingers? I couldn’t recall, although I wasn’t complaining. He started tonguing my rear in slow and smooth strokes, causing me to become dizzy.
Roarke lodged his dick inside my ass. His latex-covered cock jostled me with its gliding. He fucked slowly, fervent and unstoppable. He clasped my hips, and I felt his touch through bone, flesh, and muscles.
“Jesus, Roarke,” I said, “you mean business.”
His business included relentless, smooth humping inside my rear, huffing and puffing behind me. He dug his fingertips into my hips, and he pressed me against the shower wall, arching my back and sliding my chest against the warm tiles. I felt him drive his cock inside me again and again, and he kept whispering my name while licking and kissing my back, busy with his labor.
He eventually came after his continuous and gentle thrusts to my bottom. Roarke pulled out of me, lost the latex in the shower, and doused my spine with his load, murmuring as he came. His warm ejaculate clung to my skin, but it rinsed away when he carefully reached for my right shoulder, spun me around, and whispered, “Let me make you come.”
I wasn’t disappointed by his right-hand action on my dick. He worked my cock up and down with his fist, squeezing my prick in his tight grip. In doing so, he locked eyes with me and coached, “Come, man. Don’t be shy. I want to watch you blow your load.” And he kissed me, pressing his lips against mine, caught up in our naked act in the shower.
Our chests and mouths locked together, he moaned while he slowly jacked me off. Together we moved like peach-colored silk against the bed’s surface. His hand stayed busy on my cock, working it slow motion, tightening and loosening its grip during every upward and downward motion. And then he pulled his face away from mine and whispered, “Come for me, Brody. Don’t hold it in.”
I listened, locked to his face again, and grunted. I thrust my cock inside his fist, felt elation buzz throughout my pelvic area, and released a load of thick semen on his hand and between our chests. A half dozen moans exited my mouth as I came.
Roarke said, “That’s my guy. Blow it all out.”
We kissed again and again as I emptied my body of ejaculate. The load was a thick and gluey mass, which clung between us, sealing our bodies together. Sometime during that moment I think I whispered to him, “I love you.” Maybe not. I can’t remember. But, nevertheless, that’s how I felt.
*
Number seven: Let him know you’re crazy about him. It’s a great start to any relationship. Tell him what you’ve just shared with him wasn’t just sex between adult men. There was something more to it than that. Something almost unexplainable, real, and live. Magic between men who have a mutual interest in each other. Let him also know the two of you have a future together as boyfriends and lovers, make a good couple, and can be inseparable, locked together by your hearts.
We rinsed off together under the shower’s warm spray, and he held me in his strong, muscular arms. His chest of wet red hair rubbed against my bare one as he kissed me. When he pulled away from me, he asked, “Does it sound crazy of me to admit that I really like you?”
“Spring is here. It’s all about falling in love, isn’t it?”
“Is that what you call it?”
“It is what it is,” I replied, kissed him again, and knew that we would spend the next thirty, maybe even forty years together, coupled.