Fringe Benefits 12

Max was a good-looking kid, always was. Tall, slim, athletic body. Neatly trimmed brown hair, a handsome, chiseled face with a strong chin and high cheekbones. And just enough muscle and tone to look fit and strong, but not like he was pumped up with a ton of hot air like most muscleheads. Girls were attracted to him not only because he was attractive, but because he was smart, likable, friendly and down-to-Earth. With his looks and personality, he had the tools to go far, and most people assumed he would.

But Max wasn't going anywhere, and he knew it. He'd had four years of college but wasn't close to a degree. He'd changed majors twice, and although his grades were okay, he wasn't setting any worlds on fire. He'd started out in Engineering, but that only lasted three semesters. It was too damn hard and he could barely keep up. He switched to Geography, then a year later to Business. He handled the workload without a problem, but he found it all kind of boring. He was unmotivated, to say the least.

Max grew up in an upwardly mobile family that went from working class to middle class during his childhood years. His mom worked for a grocery chain and his dad was an auto mechanic. His father was very talented, worked hard and saved and eventually opened his own shop and employed four other mechanics. Max did his part too, worked in the shop throughout high school, and displayed as much talent as his old man, he could fix most anything. But his father wanted more for his son than working in an auto shop. He insisted that his son get an education. So off to college he went.

For four years, Max floundered around in college, getting so-so grades, partying, going to the games, chasing the girls. And as soon as each spring semester was over, he'd head straight to the beach, where he'd work hard and play hard all summer. He loved everything about the beach: swimming, surfing, the waves, the scenery, the sand between his toes, the hordes of bikini-clad chicks, the bars, the vibes. And it was at the beach, during the summer after his fourth year at the university, that he had an epiphany that would secure his future and change his life.

He was renting a condo with three other roommates, like he did every summer. It was an old complex in the oldest part of town on the barrier island, and it had seen many better days. Suddenly, one Thursday the refrigerator quit on them. The fridge wouldn't cool, the freezer wouldn't freeze. For four college kids, this was a catastrophe in the making. Sour food, warm beer, no ice? Heading into a weekend? Unacceptable.

Max called the office and the manager said she'd get somebody over there to fix it. Nobody came or even called him back. He called the office again Friday and was told she was working on it. The weekend came and went with no ice, spoiled food and warm beer. On Monday he called the office again, and was put on hold. He waited, ready to give the manager a piece of his mind when she came on the line. But he didn't have to raise hell because she was already madder than a wet hen. She went on a rant complaining about all of the lazy, incompetent people she'd called, and all of the messages she'd left, and all of the people who were either on vacation, or too busy, or had their truck in the shop, or were no longer in business, or whatever other lame excuses they had, and she was about to pull her hair out. How can I run a condo community if I can't get people to come do the work that is needed?, she said. And then she uttered the words that would alter Max's life. She said: "I swear to God, somebody could make a goddamn fortune in this town if they went into business fixing appliances and just answered their phone, called people back and showed up!"

Bingo!, Max thought. That's what I'll do.

All of the sudden it clicked. It all made sense now. He now knew how he could live at the beach, enjoy the lifestyle, and make a decent living too. He would own his own business servicing and repairing appliances. There were hundreds of condo complexes up and down the beach, large ones, small ones, miles of them. Plus thousands of homes and hotels. And they all had appliances. Washers, dryers, dishwashers, stoves, fridges, ovens, thousands of them, all models and makes. In a snap, Max was motivated. He had some money saved. He suddenly had a plan.

He did his homework. He found a tech school that offered a three month core appliance repair training course. It would begin in about a month in a city two hundred miles away. He signed up, moved there and rented himself a cheap room. He aced the course and by late autumn the school had placed him in a job with a local company. His plan was to work a few months with this company, learn on the job, save his money, then head to the beach, find a place to live and open for business.

It was easier than he thought. He had always been good at fixing things, and he was a quick study. He saw the same problems over and over and learned to diagnose and make repairs promptly and efficiently. Often he knew what to fix before he even got there, just based on the customer's description of the problem.

By March he was ready. He quit his job, went to the beach, rented a little bungalow off of the island. It was a small, two-bedroom place with a one-car garage; the garage would be his shop until he outgrew it. He got a second cell phone for the business, had his truck painted, had business cards and fliers printed up. He spent days driving up and down the beach highway, stopping into every office for every hotel, condo, subdivision, real estate broker and property management company he could find, chatting people up, dropping off his information, selling himself.

Maximal Appliance Repair

Prompt, Professional, Personal Service

The business name was a no-brainer. But he never imagined all of the services that he would end up providing, especially on the personal level. Being a good-looking, young entrepreneur would bring him fringe benefits he'd never dreamed of.

----

The first couple of months were kind of slow, but Max could see the business gradually growing, and by the time the summer season kicked off he was seeing steady work and was getting callbacks from a few of the condo managers. He was paying his bills, enjoying the good life. He could surf in the morning, make his calls, and was usually done in time to catch happy hour at one of his local haunts.

Max liked the work, but there was an unexpected benefit that made it all the more enjoyable: The vast majority of his customers were female. Maybe eighty or ninety percent, he guessed, women of all ages. Some hot, some not, but many dressed skimpily for the beach. And early on, since his business was new and operating on a shoestring budget, many of his repairs required two visits because he didn't have the parts in stock in his little garage and he'd have to order them. Over the course of the two visits, often a comfort level and some measure of rapport was reached. Some flirting might go on. Or more. As a young, handsome man, Max was occasionally presented with opportunities that were way outside of his job description. The appliances he serviced required the same parts and repairs over and over, but the women differed quite a bit. He found out that when people get away to the beach, whether it was for a weekend or a vacation, they would let their hair down, let it all hang out, and would do things that they would never do back home. There were a lot of bold, horny women at the beach.

At first he tried to be professional, strictly business. But sometimes it was hard to do. And the harder it got, the harder he got. It was not easy to focus on replacing a condenser fan when some chick with a hot body and a damp string bikini was standing in the kitchen watching him, with her tits hanging out and her bikini bottom plastered to her cameltoe. After a few months business was good, Max was busy, making money, becoming more confident and comfortable in his new profession. It was only a matter of time before he gave into temptation.

The first one was Gail. She was in her mid-thirties, a cute blonde in town for a long weekend with her husband and another couple. The ice-maker wasn't ice-making. Max came over on short notice, he was only three blocks away when he took the call. She had a body to kill for and a paper-thin black swimsuit molded to her golden skin. The air was thick with innuendo, their flirts electric, despite the fact that her husband and the other couple were out on the lanai sipping drinks. When he came back the next afternoon to finish the repair, the men were out on some golf course, and the other wife was down by the pool. Max got a blowjob standing up, then fucked her up against the back of the sofa. Never saw her again.

A few weeks later, Patty called. The dishwasher wasn't working and had several inches of standing water in it. She was fortyish, short black hair, slim and hot, with a three-quarter-carat diamond and a gold band on her left ring finger. She was staying in the unit with a friend, a wives' getaway, but the friend was out. It was late afternoon, Max's last call of the day. As he went to work on the dishwasher, Patty stood at the counter, wearing a skimpy wrap over her swimsuit, running the blender, mixing some thick, smooth tropical drink. Happy Hour. She asked Max if he wanted a taste, he said 'What the hell'. It was some fruity rum concoction and it tasted damn good. And so did she. He undressed her as they kissed and dropped her clothing onto the kitchen floor. She led him to the bedroom where he ate her pussy as he took off his pants. Then he slowly dripped the smoothie all over her body, shoulders, tits, stomach, thighs, and licked it all off. She was squirming like a toad and he fucked her like he was drilling for oil. She was a screamer too, ugh, he hated that, was afraid some neighbor might hear. He dressed and was entering the kitchen to get his toolbox when he noticed a frumpy gal, looking pissed, sitting in the living room. He said Hi, got an evil grimace in return, and got the hell out.

Then there were the twins. Maddy was the good twin, Morgan was the bad one, but Max couldn't tell them apart. There were wet clothes hanging all over the apartment because the dryer wasn't working. The vent looked like it had never been cleaned out. Max did his best to clean it, then tested it, and it checked out okay. He was explaining to the girls that they needed to clean the filter before they ran the dryer because it was a fire hazard, when the bad twin told him he had a nice ass. The good twin told her to hush. Max said thanks, he liked her ass too. She asked him if he wanted a piece of it, her sister told her to stop. But she didn't. She took charge and dragged him and her sister into the bedroom, and the good twin went along with it. Max ended up doing both of them. By the time he got out of there, Max could definitely tell them apart intimately, but not at a glance. Morgan was loud and raunchy in bed, Maddy was soft and tender. And each had her sister's name tattooed on her ass.

There was Tiffany, an eighteen year-old Goth bimbo. Black hair, black swimsuit, black polish on all twenty nails. She sat on the kitchen counter watching him while he worked. She looked hideous, covered with makeup and tats and piercings and studs, but Max couldn't stop sneaking peeks at her, there was something incredibly sexy and earthy about her. And her eyes were like two thousand watt neon beacons, one blue, one hazel. He fucked her right there, sitting on the counter.

Jenny was a slim, spry woman of sixty, the rich wife of a rich car dealer. Hubby was at work in the city while she vacationed at the beach. She looked pretty damn good, Max thought, Botoxed to the max and fake tits. She had an oceanfront house, extravagantly furnished and decorated, and worth a fortune. 'I enjoy the company of a young lover sometimes, when my husband is in the city', she'd told him the first time she took him to bed. Minimal foreplay and kissing for her, she just needed to be fucked. The first time went well, but the second time turned out to be the last because her husband surprised them mid-coitus by showing up a day earlier than expected. Fortunately Jenny heard the garage door open, and Max slipped out the back half-naked, carrying most of his clothes.

Kalisha was Max's first black chick. The burners on her stove weren't heating up, but she was. She was tall, maybe five-ten, with a sprinter's body. The stove was one of those old, tried-and-true electric coil jobs. Actually the elements weren't bad, but a couple of them were corroded and weren't inserted all the way into the receptacle to make a clean connection. He cleaned them up and connected them and they worked fine. Max showed her what the problem was, and she said with a wink, 'So, you just have to stick it in all the way, right?'. They smiled at each other, enjoyed the moment, both knowing where it was going. Soon they were kissing, hugging, then grinding. She asked him to do her a favor, he said sure, what? 'Pull out my butt plug for me', she said. He did and was amazed at the length of it, five inches, or so. He put it in her mouth and she sucked on it while he fucked her up the ass.

Jaime was a cute, flirty gal with a slim body, firm titties, and long brown hair with bangs framing her face. She wore a low-cut sundress that showed off her tits. Nice legs too, but she had a tired look, like she'd partied all night and spent the day on the beach trying to recover. She said she was a hairdresser. He fixed the timer on her washing machine and since it was the end of the day, they relaxed, she fixed them drinks. Before long they kissed, it was good. She gave him a blow job, that was better. He kissed her again and reached for her crotch. She squirmed away several times but then he slipped his hand between her legs, felt her, but her sex was not what he expected. She had a cock, and it was hard, as big as his. She tried to kiss him again, told him she was sorry, she'd wanted to prepare him, told him no, please don't go, she wanted him to fuck her. He got the hell out of there in a New York Second.

Max knew he had to stop this shit. It was getting out of hand, too weird. He'd known all along that these women customers with whom he'd had sex or brief encounters were not in town for long so he didn't worry about attachments or long affairs. But he didn't want to push his luck and end up being stalked by some Fatal Attraction nutjob. Then he got a call to come fix a freezer at a luxury oceanfront condo. There he met Haley, and everything changed.

Haley was not a nutjob, not even close. She was a lovely, foxy college girl, at the beach for the summer. She was twenty years old, hot as a pistol and cool as a cucumber. She had shoulder-length beach-blond hair, a big smile, a swaggering sense of humor, with tits and ass that would attract admirable eyes from anyone of either sex. She wore a flimsy, untied, cover-up over a leopard print bikini when Max showed up to service the frost-free freezer that was frozen over with a half-inch of ice. She was alone in the condo, friendly and talkative. As Max thawed the ice in the freezer, they talked, they laughed, their conversation flowed easily and broke any ice between them. Max was already smitten.

He told her the fan was shot. He got on the phone right in front of her and ordered the part, told her he'd be back the next day to finish the job. He liked her. He glanced at his watch. It was almost five o'clock. He debated with himself. Should I go for it? Should I wait?

"Let's go out for a drink," he said. He didn't ask, he presumed.

"Sure," she said. "Let me change."

----

She changed, alright. She was back in ten minutes dressed in a backless halter tank top, plastered-on denim cut-offs, and flops. Her, toned, tan legs were smooth as molasses and the nails on her fingers and toes were polished a sheeny brown, matching her eyes. She'd splashed on something light and fruity too. One little whiff and Max was ready to take a bite out of her right then.

"You look fabulous!" Max said. "And you smell even better."

Haley thanked him with a coy blush.

He led her to his truck. She got in the passenger side and watched him as he tore off his Maximal Appliance Repair polo shirt and put on a short-sleeved seersucker he had in the truck. Haley admired Max's body for the brief moment between shirts: His broad shoulders, tapered torso, and muscled chest and abs. Her imagination filled in the rest of him.

Max drove them to a dock bar on the bay side, where happy hour was in full swing. A keyboard player, with a whole backing band inside the laptop next to him, was playing reggae, and the partiers were partying. They took two stools at the end of the rail overlooking the bay. A waitress quickly took their order for a half-price pitcher and left a menu in case they wanted to eat. As Max glanced around the deck he noticed that the guys were already checking out Haley. The land sharks were out in full force.

They sat there for nearly two hours, talked about everything and anything, music, movies, college, jobs, and the conversation never lagged. He learned that Haley went to college in Washington D.C. and was majoring in Education, and had a summer job working at the convention center. He learned that her mother was divorced from her father, and had her own successful business negotiating medical claims. Her mom spent most of her time on the phone and computer, communicating with doctors and hospitals and insurance companies, helping patients lower their medical bills and working out payment plans. And since they both loved the beach and Mom could work from anywhere, she sold the house in the city and bought the place at the beach two years before.

He took her back to her condo, but they weren't ready to say goodnight. They walked down the beach for over a mile, continuing their stream of consciousness conversation. On the walk back in the dark they were holding hands. Back at the condo complex, they sat on a dune and were soon making out. Max already knew he wanted her but didn't want to move too fast or get ahead of himself.

"I better get you home," he said, almost short of breath. "Before I do something stupid and mess things up."

"Something stupid like what?" Haley asked.

Max sensed disappointment in her voice, a good sign, he thought. "Like move too fast, force things. Tonight with you was wonderful, Haley. I don't want to screw it up."

"You won't."

"Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night? Like a proper first date? I want to wine and dine you. Even though I don't like wine."

Haley giggled. "Sure, I'd love to. Tomorrow is good, because I have to work all weekend. There's a three-day car show and I'll be putting in long hours."

"Perfect," he said. Then he walked her to her door, and they kissed long and hard before she went inside. Max had a big boner on the drive home.

----

The next afternoon Max fixed Haley's freezer in the afternoon, then after completing the rest of his calls he went home to shower off the day's dirt. He got himself squeaky clean, smelling good, and dressed simply for a beach date, in gray shorts, a batik shirt with palm trees on it, and boat shoes. When he picked her up at six-thirty, she was waiting for him, seated outside the door on the small porch. She stood up when she saw him drive up. She looked fabulous, fresh as a daisy and hot as a griddle. Her blonde hair was poofed up and blended with her buff-colored sundress, a sexy contrast to her bronzed skin. She was bra-less, her nipples formed ripples in the light cotton fabric when she moved. She didn't carry a purse or anything else, she was traveling light. She jumped into the truck and kissed his mouth first thing.

"Where are you taking me, Big Boy?" she asked.