The day Terrence decided he was going to audition for a new TV reality show, he was reading the newspaper in the tanning salon where he worked as manager. It was a warm, humid Friday morning in late August, and it was exactly one year to the day since he'd buried his mother. The newspaper advertisement for the audition said all that was required was to show up at a hotel in New York City and sing.
And that was one of the two things in life Terrence knew how to do well. The other thing involved dropping his pants.
Then the front door opened wide and an attractive young man stepped into the waiting area--Terrence's boss. He was wearing loose white hockey shorts and his large penis bounced up and down as he crossed toward the counter. He never wore underwear. His name was Kevin and he'd been Terrence's boyfriend since high school. It was clear he wasn't having a very good day so far. His short blond hair was messy on top, there were dark circles under his eyes, and his skin looked pale. When he saw the open newspaper on the counter, he slammed a blue bank deposit bag on top of it and said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you."
Terrence slowly folded the newspaper and sighed. But he didn't reply. Kevin's silence suggested Terrence had been slacking off that morning because he'd been reading.
"Must be interesting," Kevin finally said. He looked down at the newspaper with steel blue eyes and placed his hands on his hips. Then he spread his muscular legs and started rocking on the balls of his feet.
"It's nothing important," Terrence said, rolling his eyes. He didn't want to tell Kevin about the the audition. His boss would have given a million reasons why he thought he shouldn't do the show, from his lack of talent to the fact that reality television was a passing phase and wouldn't last. Even though Kevin secretly loved reality television, he couldn't wait for an open opportunity to knock Terrence down. Terrence knew full well that Kevin had sent in audition tapes and entry forms to shows like "Big Brother" and "The Bachelor." But he'd always been rejected.
"Don't give me your shit this morning, bitch," Kevin said, slamming the palm of his wide hand on the counter. There were deep, dark circles under his eyes and his breath smelled of stale beer.
Terrence to jumped. He pressed his palm to his throat and said, "I'm not giving you attitude, Kevin. I'm just not in a great mood this morning." But it was beginning to occur to him that whenever Kevin walked into a room, his heart started to race and his mouth felt dry.
"Oh, that time of the month again," Kevin said, then raised his arms as though being held at gunpoint. "I'm getting sick and tired of this bullshit. Take a pill, bitch." He slammed both great hands on the counter. Kevin loved to refer to Terrance as the feminine type; a moody "girl" with imagined monthly periods. Terrence wasn't the least bit feminine. He had short dark hair, was average in height and had a slim, well-defined body. His legs were smooth and strong and his ass rounded like a beach ball. If anyone saw him walking down the street, they wouldn't even know he was gay. But Kevin took pleasure in having him come across as prissy; as though his being effeminate would make Kevin more of a man somehow.
"I'm just not in a great mood, is all," Terrence replied, in a slow, worn-out voice.
"I don't have time for your moody, faggot shit now," Kevin said. Then he lowered his eyebrows, and smiled. "I only stopped in to make a deposit. But I'm glad I did, because it looks like there's something else I should take care of now while I'm here." He stepped back and grabbed his dick, then he shook a handful of cock and balls a couple of times in Terrence's direction. He believed that his dick could cure anything wrong with Terrence.
"I'm not in the mood for that, Kevin. Put that big, ugly thing back inside your pants," Terrence said. But when he looked down and saw Kevin holding his dick, his eyes became wide and he pressed his palms hard against the counter. "Besides, anyone could come in and catch us." He saw the glazed look in Kevin's eyes that he always had when he was really horny.
Kevin smiled and spread his legs wider, then yanked the waistband of his shorts down and pulled out his dick. It was already semi-erect, swinging back and forth. "You know you want it. You like dick. You'll be in a much better mood after you get fucked, bitch."
Terrence sighed and wet his lips. Kevin talked to him like this all the time. It wasn't just playful dirty talk that only happened during sex; it was the real thing. He was a rough, football-player type, with six-pack abs and biceps that bulged and rounded. He drank beer with his buddies, spit on the sidewalk and hung out in dreary bars playing pool. He was a dangerous, sexual dream man with a dick of death that could make Terrence's palms sweat and his knees go weak--the perfect stud if Terrence overlooked his immaturity. And the extra toe on his right foot. So Terrence stood up, crossed the waiting area, and locked the front door. Then he turned the sign around so it read "closed" and pulled down the door shade.
"Go behind the counter, take off your clothes and bend over," Kevin said. He was leaning back and still tugging his meaty dick; it was almost a full eight inches now.
He obeyed without an argument. Partly because he didn't want to argue that morning, and partly because he hadn't been fucked in a couple of days. When he was behind the counter, he kicked off his shoes, slipped out of his jeans and pulled off his shirt. He wasn't wearing socks that day. Even though it was nearly one hundred degrees outside, the white tiled floor felt ice cold against his bare feet.
Kevin lowered his eyebrows and sneered, then reached into his back pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a plastic lighter. He put one in his mouth and lit it. He'd always been a social smoker, but never more than a pack a week. The desire to smoke during sex was just his latest fetish. Terrence sighed and leaned forward against the counter on his elbows so Kevin could walk up from behind and mount him quickly. Terrence had never been a smoker, and didn't like cigarette smoke in general, but his heart did start to beat a little faster at the thought of a big, strong guy slamming his ass while smoking. Besides, he knew this new fetish would probably fade away like so many of Kevin's past kinks. He'd gone through a period where he'd worn cock rings, but that had only lasted a few months. And then there was that six-month span when he'd insisted Terrence wear a baseball cap during sex. So Terrence spread his legs, stood on his tiptoes, and sighed again; he been through it all before with Kevin.
With a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth, Kevin crossed behind the counter and grabbed both sides of Terrence's ass so hard, his thick fingers dug into Terrence's hip bones. His dick was still hanging out of his shorts; he didn't bother to remove them. "Hand me the lotion," he said.
Terrence reached across the counter for a bottle of tanning lotion that resembled soft yellow butter and smelled like bananas and watermelon. He would have preferred a less pungent lube--his ass would smell like bananas and watermelon for hours--but Kevin liked fragrant, creamy lotions on his dick instead of clear lube.
When his dick was all wet and ready to go, he pressed his left palm on the back of Terrence's head and pushed him forward rough and hard so the side of his face was against the orange counter top. Then Kevin grabbed his dick with his right hand, pointed the tip directly into Terrance's pink hole and circled the opening. "What do you want now?" he asked.
Terrence closed his eyes and took a shallow breath. "I want your big dick," he said "Fuck me with your big, hard cock, Sir." They had been together since high school--forever, it seemed--and had never used condoms. But, in the same respect, nothing was assumed either. They had both openly agreed early in their relationship that if either one of them ever cheated with someone else, condoms would always be used. Terrence trusted Kevin completely, because one of Kevin's quirks was that he was a germaphobe, and he was terrified of HIV/AIDS.
Kevin took a drag from the burning cigarette and slapped Terrence hard on the ass. Then he bit his bottom lip and slipped the head of his cock into Terrence's hole. He waited for a second, spread his legs a little, then slid it all the way inside. Terrence's eyes rolled back and his mouth opened; he knew Kevin's dick well by now and he knew how to take all eight inches without an ounce of discomfort. He also knew Kevin liked to get in and get out fast, which was fine with him. So when Kevin's hips started bucking, he grabbed his own dick and started jerking off.
The counter began to vibrate and Kevin's balls slapped against his ass cheeks. When Kevin fucked, he tended to concentrate on his own climax and he forgot how strong he really was. There had been times when he'd fucked Terrence so brutally, Terrence had gone home with bruises on the back of his legs. And once, while he was nailing Terrence in the back seat of his car, one of his large feet cracked the rear window.
Kevin slammed so hard that a lotion display fell off the counter and crashed all over the floor. "What do you want?" he asked. "Tell me what you want."
Terrence's head was bobbing back and forth. He moaned, "Fuck me, Sir. Fuck me harder, Sir." But he was distracted. He looked down on the counter and noticed the advertisement for the reality show again. He wanted to do it; he just wasn't sure he had enough courage.
Kevin quickly lit another cigarette and let it dangle from the side of his face. Then he placed both palms on Terrence's ass and squeezed hard with his fingertips. His hips bucked faster, and he shouted, "I'm close."
Terrence stood higher on his tiptoes and said, "I'm ready. Fuck me, Sir. Give me that big, thick cock." He held the counter with such a firm grip, his knuckles turned white.
Kevin slammed harder, and then finally rammed into Terrence's body with all his strength and climaxed. The counter moved forward and a stack of papers fell to the floor. But Terrence didn't care. He only had to tug on his cock a few times to come. When there was a big dick in his body, it didn't take much effort for him to climax.
When Kevin pulled his dick out, he leaned forward and kissed him gently between his shoulder blades. Then he slapped his dripping cock on the small of Terrence's back a few times and said, "Put on your pants now, slut. I'm running a business here, not a whorehouse." He pulled up his white gym shorts and crossed to the front of the counter.
Terrence took a deep breath and sighed. The dirty talk was okay during sex, but it seemed out of context afterwards. A simple pat on the ass or a peck on the cheek would have been nice. But Kevin never did that.
"Don't open the door yet," Terrencee said, "Give me a minute to clean up. You made a huge mess with all that lotion." He reached for his clothes and crossed back to the bathroom. There was come dripping between his legs and he didn't want to sit like that for the rest of the day.
When he returned a minute later, Kevin was standing near the front door with the deposit bag under his arm and another cigarette dangling from his mouth. "I'll call you later," he said. Then he opened the front door and left.
Terrence put his hands on his hips and stared at the mess on the floor. There were bottles of lotion strewn across the lobby; the pile of papers had gone across the floor and some had landed on chairs.
As he was leaning forward to pick up the lotion bottles, someone said, "What the hell happened in here this morning?" He looked up and saw his best friend, Emma, standing in the doorway. She was wearing a hot pink halter top, a short white skirt and white high heels. She was one of those young women with wide hips and chunky legs; but she pulled it off well with her short skirts and sexy shoes.
Terrence smiled. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Kevin stopped by early to make a bank deposit, and he got a little horny and wound up making a deposit in me, too." He told Emma everything about his sex life with Kevin, from the verbal talk to the hot and wild fetish details.
She put her hands on her hips and said, "Oh no, you didn't." But her eyebrows arched and she was smiling. She loved hearing about Terrence's raw sexual adventures with Kevin. Especially then, because she wasn't dating anyone.
"Ah well," he said, "Just a quickie, is all." He couldn't look her in the eye. He'd just had a long conversation with her the night before about how he wanted to break up with Kevin because the relationship wasn't going anywhere. He was so tired of the constant roller coaster ride, which consisted of hot, wonderful sex followed by emotional disillusionment.
Emma folded her arms across her chest and pressed her lips together. "I don't see how you're ever going to get rid of him if you keep having sex with him. Why can't you just say no for once?"
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "I like it. This morning he nailed me so hard we almost knocked the counter down. It was intense."
She raised her hands in the air and waved them back and forth. "I don't want to hear this. I'm going into room two now so I can tan, or I'll be late for work." Then she crossed the lobby and disappeared down a narrow hallway.
"I'll set you up," he shouted, reaching behind the counter to set up her tanning bed with the computer. He controlled all the beds from the front desk. All the customers had to do was push a button next to the bed when they were ready to tan and the bed would turn on and off automatically.
A minute later, another client entered. Annie Rose was a widow in her early sixties who had recently discovered the psychological benefits of ultraviolet light. "Can I have bed five today? I've never done bed five." she asked. Then she stared down at the chaos on the floor and pressed her hand to her throat.
Terrence smiled. "Sorry about the mess, Annie," he said, "I knocked a few things over by accident this morning. Just go back to room five, and I'll set up the bed for ten minutes." Annie Rose, like most of his customers, paid by the month, so there was no need to ring up a sale. And though a typical session ran twenty minutes, she preferred ten because of her pale skin.
"Thanks," she said, and went back to room five.
But then Terrence frowned. Room five had one of the smallest tanning beds in the salon. And Annie was a large woman who had been on a diet since l968. You couldn't overlook a figure like hers. When she walked through the hallway, her wide hips brushed against the walls. And when she sat down on the tanning bed, you could hear the Plexiglas squeak and crack all the way out in the lobby.
He was about to suggest that Annie reconsider and use bed seven (the largest one), when a new customer opened the front door. When he looked up, a young guy with a smooth, even voice said, "I'm in a hurry today. Do you have a tanning bed open?" He told Terrence he'd been to the salon before, on Sundays when Terrence was off.
"No problem," Terrence said. The guy had a rough, rock-star appeal. His shaggy, sandy blond hair parted on the right and fell across his forehead in messy clumps. He was wearing faded jeans, a white T-shirt and heavy black boots. When he shoved his hands into his pockets, round muscles popped from his upper arms.
"My name is Jude Foster," he said, "I'm already in the computer and I have an ID card." There were flecks of gold in his pale blue eyes. When he smiled, the right side of his mouth went higher than the left.
Terrence crossed back to the counter and pulled his ID card from the files. He signed his name fast, handed the card back to Terrence and said, "What's your name?"
"Ah well," he said, "Terrence." When he looked into Jude's eyes, his heart began to beat faster and his legs felt a little weak. His ass was still warm from Kevin's dick, and now he wanted to fall on his knees for Jude.
Jude reached into his back pocket and the white shirt rose above his waistline, exposing a lean, flat stomach. He handed Terrence a ten-dollar bill and smiled again. "Terrence," he said, "Nice to meet you."
He took the money and smiled. "Thank you. It's nice to meet you, too." Then he pointed to the hallway and said, "You can have room seven today."
"Thanks, man," he said, and crossed back to the hallway. He walked on the balls of his feet, as if he were ready to start jogging.
After he set up Jude's bed on the computer, Emma returned to the lobby. But she didn't stop to talk. She just crossed by fast and said, "I'll call you later. I'm in a hurry." She was a hairdresser, but hated where she worked.
Then he remembered he hadn't heard a word from Annie Rose. She should have come out before Emma. He looked down at the computer and saw her tanning session had ended more than ten minutes ago. His stomach jumped and he jogged back to room two and knocked on the door a few times. "Are you okay, Annie?" he whispered through the door. He waited, but there was no response. What if she'd had a stroke? What if she got stuck in the tanning bed and couldn't get out? He said, louder, "Is everything all right, Annie? Are you okay?" But there was no response. His heart started beating faster and his mouth became dry. What would he tell the people at 911? That there was a woman stuck in a tanning bed? "Bring a large stretcher," he'd have to tell them, "She's a big one." He knew how to unlock the door from the outside, but he wasn't sure he wanted to find a dead woman. What a fine state of affairs this was.
Then he heard a shuffle, and Annie said, "I'm okay. But the bed is stuck. I can't get the lid open. I hope I didn't break it."
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second. "I'll get you out, Annie. I'm so sorry. Sometimes these beds get stuck and the lids don't work properly." The tops of the tanning beds opened and closed with two long, thin hydraulic pumps attached to either end. When the pumps worked, it made lifting the tanning bed simple, as though the heavy lid weighed nothing at all. However, when the hydraulic pumps malfunctioned, those lids were nearly impossible to lift, especially when you were flat on your back.
"Hold on a second, Annie," he said, "I'll get some help and you'll be out of there in a minute. You're not stuck. I know what to do."
He knew he'd never be able to lift the lid on his own, so he ran to room seven and knocked on Jude's door.
"Jude," he said, "I need some help out here. It's an emergency. There's a customer stuck in a tanning bed and I need some help getting her out." His voice was cracking by then and his chest was heaving.
There were shuffling noises in Jude's room. In a second, the door opened and Jude stood in the doorway wearing nothing but a white terrycloth towel wrapped around white cotton briefs. The towel wasn't large enough to cover him completely. It fastened at the side of his waist in a Tarzan-style knot, and his solid, fleecy left leg was exposed all the way up to his white briefs.
He followed Terrence to room five, where Annie Rose lay trapped. Terrence reached above the door where he kept a key to unlock each cubicle in case of an emergency. But Jude grabbed the key from his shaking hand and with a few turns and clicked the door opened.
"We're coming in, Annie," Terrence said.
Jude went to the foot of the tanning bed and Terrence went to the head. They reached under and placed their palms on the edge. "We'll lift the lid, Annie, hold it in place, and you get out," Terrence said.
"Okay." She didn't sound defeated or worried. Her tone seemed to suggest she enjoyed the excitement.
On the count of three, they gradually lifted the lid and held it in place while poor Annie Rose struggled beneath them. She slowly turned onto her side to swing her right leg over the edge of the bed first so she could get her footing. It took three tries, but she finally threw her large leg over and awkwardly crawled out, ass first. Terrence was silently relieved she'd had the foresight to wear a bathing suit and had not opted to tan naked like so many clients preferred. It was a black one-piece, with push-up bra and a ruffled peplum covering the tops of her thighs.
"Oh my," Annie said. Then she stood up straight, trying to regain her balance. But her eyes rolled and her body swayed. They were still holding the lid when she lost balance and backed into Jude. Her hip banged him in such a way the white towel wrapped around his waist slipped off and fell to the floor. At least he was facing the tanning bed and they couldn't see his front, but Annie and Terrence had a full view of how his sweet, slim body looked in white briefs from behind. There were two perfect dimples at the small of his back. Poor Annie took one look at Jude's ass in underwear and covered her open mouth with her right hand. Then she took another quick peek, glanced at Terrence and winked.
Jude and Terrence slowly lowered the lid so it wouldn't come crashing down and ruin the tanning bed. On its way down, Jude quickly reached for the towel so he could cover his almost naked body.
"Thank you so much, young man," Annie said, while Jude hunched over and slowly backed out of the room. The towel covered his entire front while he held it in place from behind with his right hand.
"No problem," he said, clearly wanting to leave.
When he was gone, Annie smiled and turned to Terrence. "Well, that was exhilarating. I'll just get dressed now and wipe down the bed."
Terrence returned to the reception desk, and a few minutes later Annie came pounding down the hallway. When she reached the lobby, she said, "Damn, that felt great!"
Terrence apologized for the bed problem and offered her a free tanning session, but Annie refused. "It wasn't that bad," she said, "I've been through worse." Then she leaned in closer and in a stage whisper said, "And where in the world could I go to see a cute guy like that in his underwear? I wouldn't mind getting stuck all the time if he came to the rescue. Ha."
Terrence laughed and promised her that every hydraulic pump in the salon would be checked by a technician and it would never happen again.
As she turned to leave, clomping toward the exit, a wave of sadness suddenly came over him. His mother had been dead one year, he was still in the same stagnant relationship, and there didn't seem to be any hope for the future. The audition for the reality show was his only hope.
When Jude Foster's tanning session ended, he came down the hallway with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets. Terrence was on the telephone with Kevin. Poor guy couldn't figure out how to read the recently updated bank deposit forms. "Hold on a second," Terrence said to Kevin. "A new customer is leaving, and I want to see if all went well." As a businessman, Kevin shouldn't have minded Terrence's concern for a paying customer, but he called him a stupid fucking cock slut and hung up in a snit. Terrence faked a smile so Jude wouldn't know he'd just been insulted.
"I see you're busy on the phone, and I have to run, but I'll be back," Jude said as he crossed the lobby.
"Thanks for helping out like that," Terrence said, "I would have had to call 911 and it could have been embarrassing for everyone."
"No problem," he said, then hesitated for a moment and sniffed back a few times. He lowered his eyebrows and said, "I like that smell. What is it? Bananas and something else I can't figure out."
Terrence's eyes opened wide and he smiled. He knew his ass would smell like bananas and watermelon for the rest of the day. But he didn't want Jude to know that, too. So he said, "We have all kinds of lotions in here."
"Oh," he said, but he sniffed a few more times and smiled.
"Let me at least give you a refund," Terrence said.
"No way. I enjoyed this tanning session. My ex-boyfriend hated it when I tanned. We broke up a few weeks ago and now I can do whatever I want," he said, cleverly informing Terrence that he was openly gay. "He also said my mother was too interfering, and she's not at all like that, trust me."
"Sorry to hear that," Terrence said, fumbling for words, "about the break-up, not you doing what you want. You should be able to do whatever you want all the time."
"Don't be sorry," Jude said, "it was coming for a while."
"Relationships aren't easy," Terrence said, "I'm on the verge of breaking up with a guy right now." He couldn't believe he'd actually said it out loud, and to a perfect stranger. He wasn't really on the verge; just thinking about it. But that's how it came out.
"Not easy at all, man," Jude repeated, backing toward the exit.
"Mine's been coming for a while, too," Terrence said. He did it again.
Jude smiled and shook his head. As he turned to leave, Terrence noticed the smooth, reddish brown skin on his broad shoulders; his long legs slightly bowed at the knee. Jude Foster, without a doubt, had to be one of the sexiest men he'd ever met.
When he opened the front door, he turned back and asked, "Are you here all the time?"
"Six days a week," Terrence said, "including Saturdays."
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