He was a hunk and a half—Tall, muscular in a sinewy way, with curly black hair that extended down his face in a tightly clipped beard and mustache and then swirling out of his company shirt, with its top two buttons undone. Bulging pecs and biceps, flat belly, and tight buns. He was maybe early thirties, his open assessment of me told me at a glance what his orientation was, and he looked like he would be highly capable in bed—like he had the experience to get what he wanted and to give the other guy a good time in the process, as long as the other guy liked being controlled and getting it rough. I was in the front yard of the North Wilmington, Delaware, bungalow I'd just bought and was beating back the jungle, wearing just athletic shorts, a jock, and sneakers. I'd picked up the house in distress sale with the intent of fixing it up and flipping it in a couple of years.
And, yes, I am a slut for it.
The initial look he gave my twenty-six-year-old well-gymed body when he rolled out of his truck told me what I needed to know. His eyes went from my face down to the silver bars in the nipples of my trim torso and then back up into my eyes, giving me a knowing smile. He could eat me up. My returning smile told him that, why, yes, he could. He quickly went into serviceman neutral mode, but I'd seen those first looks, so I knew. He knew that I knew.
"Are you Mr. Lewis?" he asked, walking over to stand near me, where I'd been taking a machete to the foliage. "You called Brandywine Plumbing needing a plumber?"
"That's me," I said, flexing and posing for him on the excuse of working my knotted muscles out now that I'd stopped chopping. I'm sure he understood why I was doing it, and it emboldened him. The look he gave me was quite baldly sexual.
"Just bought the place," I said. "Probably a month's worth of plumbing needs here. You up for a total rehab job?"
"I'm up for lots of things," he said, returning to the "eat you up" mode. Somewhere between his truck and five feet in front of me, where he stood a good five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than me, he'd assessed that I went with men and that he was the kind of man I'd be happy going with. I don't know how he did that other than the piercings in my nipples and the looks I gave him that I couldn't hold back. It wasn't too obvious, I told myself. My going hard wasn't showing, and I didn't have my tongue hanging out or anything. But it wasn't because I didn't want to. In any event, when he'd said that, he'd reached out and touched my arm lightly. I think he did that to see if I'd wince or shy away. I didn't, so like that we'd established something. A serviceman reaching out and touching a client was not something normally expected when just meeting like this before any work was done.
"What needs it the most?" he asked. "Where should I start in assessing what needs done?"
I need it the most, I wanted to say. I hadn't gotten it from a stud like him since before moving in here. I had a good job in banking in the city, Wilmington being a tax haven for banks, but the job took a lot of time and this dump I was determined to make into a showplace was taking almost every other waking moment—with maybe just a bit of side action. And you can start by taking me to the picnic table out back, laying me on top of it, and fucking my brains out.
The looks he gave me suggested he was thinking the same thing. But he was on his company clock now.
I had developed a certain type of guy to gravitate to who was likely to meet my needs and wants best, who would take me higher into the pain-pleasure zone, both of which I needed to feel alive sexually. Many videos aside, I'd found that pain went with the bottoming but, strangely, that the pain mixed in with pleasure to get me going and get me off took me to higher satisfaction. I could jack multiple times, get drained dry, with the right kind of guy working me, and that was my form of Nirvana. I wanted to be drained dry. I wanted a take-charge, controlling guy who knew and used the more athletic, taxing positions beyond straightforward missionary, doggie, and cowboy, and who
could
use them. Thus, I found the guy who usually could deliver with exhibited confidence and control; had a slight look of danger in his eyes; was past thirty, to have accumulated the experience of positions; and was more runner athletic than football player athletic was, by far, the best cocksman. I had seen almost immediately that this plumber fit those specifications. And he was signaling interest. He certainly had the self-confidence and assertiveness going for him.
"I guess the kitchen needs it first," I answered. "The faucet there is constantly running and I can't get it turned off. I'm afraid to work on it myself because everything is so rusted that it might come apart in my hand and become a runaway fountain."
"Well, then, lead on and we'll see what we see about that."
When I turned to take him up onto the deep front porch, one of the features I really liked about the place, he actually touched me on the butt. It was the sort of touch that could be taken two ways by the receiver—just an accidental brush of a wayward hand as we were turning and moving to the house or a declaration, one gay man to another. I took it as the latter, and turning my head and giving him a slight smile told him which way I took it. I meant for him to know.
The bungalow was one of those "keeps going on back" houses, deeper than it was wide. You entered directly into the living room. Off to the right was a room that could once have been one of the bedrooms, but it was going to be a library in my redo. This would be a living room for me. What was originally the living room would be more of a reception room, since I wasn't wild about the front door leading directly into where most of my living would be done. I liked having an entry foyer. Mine now would just be bigger than the norm.
Behind the living room was a dining room of the same dimensions, with a bay window to the side overlooking the chipped concrete driveway that went back to the detached two-car garage and the house next door. Behind that, in a line with the living and dining room was the kitchen, again with a wide window out onto the driveway and the house next door. It wasn't as wide as the dining room. In that space was a hall that went a bit off to the left, with a bath straight head and a bedroom on either side. On the right side of that hall was a staircase that went upstairs to what had been an attic and now was quite a large room, with another bath. This I was making into the master bedroom. The mud room-laundry-pantry was on the back of the house beyond the kitchen. This had a door to the outside that opened onto a small deck, with steps down to the driveway. Most of the time we'd be entering by that door, having parked in the garage, if it could be saved before it fell down.
This layout was important to know at this point, because, in order to get to the kitchen and the dripping faucet, we had to go through the living room and the dining room. The problem, one I didn't figure on, was that Claire was on a ladder in the dining room fitting curtains in the bay window.