“Hey, you wanna make some money?” That’s how it always starts. I cruise the streets in the late afternoon, before dark, so I can see the guys. I’m looking for a particular type. Black, about thirty, slender with good definition, not too desperate looking, and friendly. The friendly part is important. If the guy smiles, well, he’s got the job. This one smiled and came toward the car with hands in open entreaty, “What I gotta do, Bossman?” He laughed at the question, nervous but not wanting to pass up an opportunity. The faded red tee shirt was clean and his blue work pants were ironed and fresh. His shoes were the standard black leather athletic style, but not new. I liked his wide shoulders and long legs, and I liked his grin. There was a knowing, wise look without the leer that can put me off, and a nervous edge that meant he needed to please. Perfect. “Come on, you don’t have to break parole or nothin’ Easy money...”, I smiled back and made him laugh. This was sort of a test, if the guy insisted on knowing what the job was, means he’s got firm boundaries, defensive. But this one reached for the car door, ready to trust and ready to take a chance... I liked that. He got into the passenger seat, “Listen, I gotta be back pretty soon, this won’t take too long, will it?”, the wise look again. He was sure, now, that this was a pick-up for sex and he was comfortable with that. Just wanting an opening to negotiate a price, he was all eyes and keen attention but he left the door open to indicate he wasn’t going until he heard dollars. “Well, that’s up to you, I pay ten bucks an hour for models, I’m an artist. How much you want to earn?” “Models? You want me to be your model?”, the grin broadened. He was surprised and a little incredulous, “Oh, you want me to take off my clothes, right?”. This time I ignored the smile and went on seriously, “Not really, just want to draw your face, mostly... nude models get more money... but I’ll buy you whatever you want to drink and get you some cigarettes if you need ‘em, buy your supper if you stick around awhile. I told you, easy money! But if you don’t have time, hey, I can find somebody else, it’s okay.” He slammed the door closed, “What the hell, I’ll try anything once, and I been out of squares all day, I was ‘bout to hit you for one...where we going, anyway?” This was only curiosity, his resistance had been left at the curb. He sat back and rubbed at his crotch, watching my eyes for a reaction. I liked keeping him off balance. He would be used to getting cruised by closet cases anyway, he would know how to handle it. “I live out in Forest Park, ‘bout ten minutes up the freeway... where’s a store? You like beer or wine? Or you rather have Pepsi? I’ve got Pepsi in the fridge.” “One more block down, on the right, see it? I’ll get a beer, you want me to get you one?” I handed him a ten, “No thanks, I just drink coffee. Get a six-pack of any brand you want and some smokes.” “You need smokes? Anything?” “Nawh, I’m fine.” He ducked into the store and I thought about his hand squeezing his dick, trying to gauge my interest, he was going to be wondering for a while longer. That was the point of the game! This guy was hip: I could pay him the ten bucks for his dick, more money if I wanted more from him, but he would just be performing a service. I was playing a little game, inventing the rules as I went along. I wanted him to seduce me. I wanted him intensely involved, risking something, emotionally active. Sometimes the game worked. Sometimes I lost; sometimes I won. When he slid back into the car and offered me the change, I waved it off. This was his first clue that I had a ready roll. In this neighborhood, a man’s biggest attraction is the size of his wallet, and I definitely wanted him attracted. It looks foolish and loses you respect to flash a fat wad of cash, might even get you killed. But the attitude of being unconcerned about a few dollars goes a long way to establish you as having plenty in reserve if not actually on you. I not only expected him to hustle me, I counted on it! So that was my role; mark. If I played my part good enough, he would take over the controls, turn up the heat and seduce me with the passion of a tropical gale. Passive aggression is such a trip! His name was Frederick, but he said I should call him “Ribs”, that being the nickname he was used to. “Why they call you Ribs?” I asked. He laughed and pulled up his tee shirt, looked down at his expanse of tight-grained skin. “My momma always say no matter how much I eat she could still count my ribs! Been skinny all my life, I guess.” At a red light, I let him see my studied appreciation of his belly and chest. I almost caught my breath with the impact of the chiseled abdominals and the smoothly curved pectorals. He must have been tensing to pull the sinew tight and high, and as I watched, his puffy nipples began to contract into tight discs with a raisin center. While he was watching my expression, I turned away quickly. “Don’t look skinny to me, just muscle with no fat. You work out? How’d you get that hard belly?” “Nawh, I don’t lift no weights! Just natural, I guess. I been working for a guy, moving furniture in a van, you know? I guess that got me pumped up some.” He slid down in the seat and relaxed, certain, now, that he could work me whenever he was ready. “What’s your name? Besides, Bossman, I mean.” Again, the knowing grin. “Dean”, I told him and shoved my hand toward him without looking. He took it in both his and shook it as he drew my fingertips down to touch his thigh. I pulled back quickly. “Here we are.” and pulled up into the driveway. I led him right upstairs to the studio that occupied all the upper floor, he was looking back into the wide, formal living room as we mounted the steps. “Wow, what a place! You live here all by yourself?” “Yep, kids are grown and out, been divorced about ten years, now.” “You got kids?” “ Got a boy and a girl... I’ve even got a grandkid.” “ Hey, I’d never thought it! You don’t look like a grandpa. Don’t look old enough, you know. You don’t look to be forty!” “ Thanks, Frederick, but I passed forty a few years back!” We entered the long bright studio at the gallery wall, filled floor to ceiling with my paintings and drawings. Ceiling spots hit the three great male nudes spaced evenly across the center of the arrangement; large-boned, well-muscled black men, all professional models. Their poses are designed to make the genital area the focus of the pictures, so the first thing people see is three huge semi-hard black cocks, jumping from the jumble of images. “Day-umn! You painted these? Hey man, you really are an artist! I didn’t think, you know, I didn’t even think you could do this! I ain’t never seen nobody paint like this. Look at that rufus, would you? That dude is hung! “ He was staring at the center one, everybody did. Marcel was pretty much over the limit, anyway.. I just exaggerated the thickness a bit and added a slick, wet highlight. People could hardly avoid staring at it! “He makes me feel like a little boy!” Frederick laughed. He touched his crotch to underline his meaning and I let my eyes hesitate there while I laughed with him. Looking back at the painting, I told him, “Well, don’t get too insecure. I painted it bigger than he really was. He probably doesn’t have any more than you. I also made his chest wider and his arms bigger. It’s a painting that exaggerates the male body. That’s what I wanted it to do, anyway. It should make you feel like a little boy, I think it has that effect on most guys.” “You like to paint naked men, don’t cha’? Are you gay?” He gave me an innocent gaze, as though he hadn’t really thought about it before. “I don’t know what I am, Ribs... but I only painted these guys, I didn’t sleep with them.” I turned away toward the drawing table. “ There’s a refrigerator over there you can put your beer in to keep it cold. Go ahead and open one and sit on this stool.” I dragged a floor spot closer to the stool and pulled a fresh pad of newsprint out, clipped it to the easel. “That’s it? Just sit here and drink? Do I have to be real still?” “No, you can talk if you want to. Tell me about yourself, what you been up to?” I began light sketches with charcoal, barely glancing up at him, half listening. “ Me? Oh, I ain’t been up to no good. Ain’t been caught, anyway!” He tried to catch my eyes but I just smiled and kept working. “You mind me taking off my shirt? That light’s hot!” “Sure, if you want to, it don’t matter. I’ll kick up the air conditioner if you’re really too hot.” “Naw, this is fine.” he peeled off the red tee and tossed it to the floor. “and I’d be glad to get out of these pants for you, anytime! I never much liked clothes, anyway. At home, I usually strip down to watch TV, you know? Wouldn’t be no big thang.” Now I smiled right into his eyes with sudden humor, “Well, if it’s no ‘big Thang’, you might as well keep your pants on!” We both laughed but he needed to tell me, “Hey, it’s big enough! And sometimes it gets to be a ‘big thang’... at least nobody ever complained. I know how to use it and that’s the important part! Some guys got them old big loggerheads and they think thas enough, don’t even try to please nobody. I like to take my time, go slow and enjoy the trip, you know what I mean?” “Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Just having the big one is no good unless you know how to treat people. And you do seem like a nice guy, Ribs. I bet you’re a good lover and your girlfriend is probably crazy about you!” “Well, I ain’t got no girl, right now. Ain’t got nobody to do my sweet lovin’ to.” I didn’t even glance up at the baited statement, “Well, there’ll be another one soon. Guys like you don’t walk around without a woman too long. One of ‘em will latch onto you the next day or so. You’ll walk out of here with a few bucks in your pocket and they can smell it, you know they can!” He laughed, too. “I tries to stay away from them kind. They always pulling me down and I wanna get up in the world, you know? Hard for a guy like me to meet up with anybody wants to help me out, everybody just wants some juice. Now if I did find somebody treats me right, hell, I’d be the best thang they ever wished for. I know how to make anybody happy; a woman, a man... don’t matter. Tell you the truth, men usually treat me better than women, anyway.” “Ribs? Are you saying you’re gay?” I tried to look puzzled. “Me? Hell no. I’m a man! You wont see me swishing around in lipstick or nothing like that! But a man don’t have to be no sissy to make another man happy, do he?” “Well, I thought only gay men had sex with other men?” “Why, you got that wrong. Thas what most folks thinks. Truth is, lots of real men like to get into a sex thang with anybody willing to go along. Them sissies, they just wishing they was women, ready to cut off their jazz and sing high notes. A man is proud of his rufus and climbing in bed with another dude don’t change that. I ain’t gone lie about it like most men, not to you, anyways. I’ve done everything one time or another, been all the way around the block. Ain’t you ever rubbed on a man?” “Well, I have messed around a little bit, yeah. But I always been kinda shy about it. I was always afraid the guy would make fun of me if he knew how much I liked it, you know?” I had stopped drawing altogether, now, just looking into his eyes all open and honest. I could almost hear the triumphant brass section blasting in his skull, but he stayed calm and gentle, managing me like a nervous pony. “Aw, you just never found the right man to make you comfortable and to trust. You don’t know what you’re missing, Dean. Might be more pleasure than you ever dreamed you could feel! Could be the beginning of a whole new life for you, being satisfied like you never been satisfied before.” His intensity grew into a focused thrill running from his dark sparkling eyes to my dull blues. I felt it as a little tremor of excitement spreading from my diaphragm. Damn, he was good! “Anybody can look at them pictures and see how you likes men, likes the big muscles and the power and the glory! Why you wanna be something you not? Here you done spent your whole life pretending you want a woman when what you really wanted was right there in front of you all the time! Be true to yourself, Dean, it’s the onlyest way you ever gonna be happy, and you know it.” He was glistening now in the heat of the lamp. A fine layer of shine lay over his skin and made every contour stand out in relief, muscles tensed in his concentration were rippling and moving like snakes coiling into readiness. He tilted the beer can up and drained it, letting some overflow his lips and run in sparkling rivulets down his corded neck and spilling pools into the hollow of his throat, gliding down the opulent chest and coming to rest as droplets on the taut belly... I desperately wanted to lick up every drop! “I donno’, Ribs... maybe I’m too old to change. The thought of it makes me afraid, you know, nervous.” My eyes were entranced by the movement of his hand wiping the trail of beer into the sweat, smearing the droplets across the dark richness of brown naked navel and down to rub the wet palm onto the full crotch of his pants. His fingers left darker blue prints on the work pants, across the fly and down to the thick lump of whatever waited there inside. He squeezed luxuriantly and let his full lower lip hang wet and loose, eyes heavy-lidded in a passionate stare. My knees were trembling. The mound under his fingers grew into a definable shape, though still soft and flattened against his thigh. “Damn, it is getting hot in here. I gotta git outta these clothes.” He popped the snap of the closure and slid the zipper down without ever letting his eyes leave mine. He kicked off his shoes and stood up. The pants dropped to his knees. I didn’t hide my avid interest in his white boxer shorts and thickly muscled thighs. He continued to watch my face while he stripped off the pants and then stretched and posed for my pleasure. He loved the attention; a grin kept pulling at his lips. “Well? Think I could be one of them naked models? Is my body good enough?” “Ribs, I think you’re beautiful! Yes, I’ll have to paint you. Would you like that?” “Hell yeah, I’d like that a lot! I always was a show off. I want everybody to see what I got. Come over here, come on. Put down that pencil, now come on right here...” I did as he said, approaching slow and hesitantly. “I want you to feel this”, he took my hand and placed it on his raised biceps, pulled the arm tight and made a fat hard muscle for me to admire. I stroked it with awe and respect. It had the shape and resilience of a small football. “Wow, that’s awesome,” I murmured and let my palm glide up and onto his shoulder. His hands clasped my waist and drew me tight against him then rubbed at my back, pressing me into his near naked body. He brushed his cheek to my face and whispered hoarsely, “Touch me all over. Feel how hard I am. Does that feel good? Do you like that?” I didn’t talk, but I followed his instructions and ran my palms over every inch of bare skin I could reach, stroking his back and shoulders, his strong arms and the back of his neck, feeling the heat and energy pulsing just beneath the smooth brown skin. With a startling ferociousness he growled low against my ear then began kissing my neck and the side of my face, his hands wandered lower and cupped my ass, pulling my pelvis against his grinding hips. I felt his erection pushing into me. He took my hands and placed them on the sides of his shorts, “You pull ‘em down, okay?” .My face looked up into his with passive joy and he bent his mouth to my lips and kissed me deeply while I tugged the white boxer shorts down below his hips and reached around to fondle his high curved and hard tensed buttocks. I let my fingertips slide up and down the sweat slick crevasse that almost steamed with his passion and he renewed the assault on my mouth, plunging in with tongue and sucking at my lips in avid hunger. Our balance was becoming unsteady and he broke off reluctantly, breathing with a ragged intensity. His hand came between us, stroking at my hardness inside my too tight jeans. “Let’s lay down before we fall down”, and he pulled me to the wooden floor. “My bedroom is just down the stairs...” “Next time, okay? Right now I’m in a hurry, I gotta get a nut or explode. You making me so hot!” and he was kissing me fiercely again and I battled elbows and knees to get his shorts off while he tore at my buttons and finally let me raise the shirt over my head as he pulled open my fly and pushed jeans and jockey shorts down together, not even clearing my ass before he was jerking my dick and sliding his hands down between my legs to clasp at thighs and it took an eternity to get free of the binding clothes and lay finally naked, skin to skin, on our sides facing each other. Some of the tensions eased up and a moment of relaxation brought the smiles to our faces. “Well, well. Now what, hmm?” He laughed low and crooned, “... what do you like best? Do you like this?” and he pushed his hand deep into the crack of my ass, fingertip almost penetrating the tight clenched anus, but his hands were in motion, sliding between us to grasp my dick and stroke it slowly. “Do you like this?” He pulled my hand down to his hard and now slippery cock, “You like that? I know you like that.” He kissed me again and sat up, leaning down in one motion to turn me full on my back and dive his lips to my dick. He was rough and demanding, no gentleness at all. He squeezed me in his fist and stroked up and down in fast strokes as he sucked and licked at the head. I arched my back involuntarily, lifted my hips to his grip and gasped for breath. He paused long enough to grin up at me, “Well, I guess you like that, huh? I like it, too.” And he went back to work, shifting his long body around so he could straddle my face, he lowered his fat dark cock to my lips. His balls were heavy and hanging low, brushing across my face and his scent was like wood smoke, burning leaves. I had barely got my lips around his flared head when I felt the impending climax build deep in my groin, my legs thrust wide and I bucked suddenly upward with a warning cry, “I’m cumming! Look out!” But he renewed his speed, gulping me deeper into his wet mouth and I felt his lips seal around my shaft. His strokes halted with the first spurt, we froze in position, my butt up off the floor and his mouth clamped to my dick. Three, four hard spasms shook me and pumped into him, then I lay back and collapsed while he slowly milked the last drops and I felt the soft release unclench my blood flow and relaxed into giddy smiles. “No, no! You ain’t going to sleep till I get mine!”, he laughed at me. “Just get me off, please!” He begged. “I’m ‘bout to blow any second!” I pushed him down onto his back and knelt between his upraised legs. He was right, primed and ready. I did the job quickly, pulled back to watch the spurts geyser up and speckle his chest and belly with pearl drops. I climbed up to lay on him and let the warm goo stick us together. He held me and together we rode the excitement down to a soft and gentle contentment. We softened into well-pleasured, well-satisfied meat. And we each silently planned the next act of our play. I did paint him. He was a great model. And he did hustle me, for all he was worth, and he was worth quite a lot, I’ll tell you!! .....Jackertoo@AOL.com
