by J. M. Snyder
“I guess we’ll have to work on your self-control, huh?”
I watched him suspiciously, not sure I could believe what I heard. “What do you mean, exactly?”
“I’m going to talk you into coming without once touching your cock. But you have to sit on your hands after you pull your cock out. No touching, understand? And take some tissue out of the box on the back seat.”
I couldn’t believe I was going along with this. Was the heat and all the recent drama making me crazy? I placed a few sheets on my lap and against my shirt after pulling my dick out. Damn thing was hard already. At least the doors were high enough no one would see my pole waving in the air. And we were in the carpool lane.
“So it’s hot outside, right?” he began. “Close your eyes and picture the two of us, covered in sweat at the back of my house in Stone Mountain, stark naked. The fence is high enough nobody can see our nude bodies anyway. But wouldn’t it be fucking hot if they did? The heat’s driving us both a little crazy, and the need to fuck finally overtakes everything else. I push you to the ground, grass tickling your skin, and stick my tongue down your throat while I rub my wet, messy body all over yours.”
It was getting harder and harder for me to keep my hands still. His voice was mesmerizing, and my dick leaked.
“I move down to your nipples,” he continued. “I suck them into hard, sensitive nubs before I take a bite. Mm, tasty.” Traffic was still not moving, so the torture continued. “I leave hickies behind as I move down your belly, past your cute belly button, and lick your prick like an ice cream cone. Man, you’re the best tasting cream I’ve ever had. Soon, I need more. I take you down, down, and bring you close, then pull back.
“I do this over and over until you’re begging me to come. When you do, it’s like a flood, and I can’t swallow it all. I take what’s left over and grease my prick, then use some to open your hole. It doesn’t take long because you’re already primed for me. I push in, your legs around my waist, and fuck you raw, baby. I fuck you so hard, you’re sore for days when we’re done. But right now? It doesn’t matter because it’s us. We’re together, and it’s so good! Can’t you feel it, baby? You and me?”
When Bransworth stopped talking and leaned over to suck my earlobe, I lost it completely. Without touching my cock, just like he said, I came all over the tissues I’d strategically placed, mouth open in an ‘o’ as I struggled to keep my hands where they were and not jack my cock to force more cum to spew.
I slumped against the seat and sighed. “Shit,” I panted. “That’s what happens when you talk-fuck me? I’ll explode when we finally do it for real.”
“I know, and I will, too. I’m hard for you right now, and the minute we get home? I’m gonna own your ass. So try and catch your breath.”
Traffic began to move, so Bransworth focused on the road again while I cleaned up and tucked myself back in. I glanced at his crotch and noticed the bulge there.
“You sure you can wait?”
“I’m a proponent of delayed gratification. It was something Jenson didn’t always appreciate, but I have a feeling you will.”
I smiled. “You definitely won’t hear any complaints from me.”
* * * *
We made it to Bransworth’s home, finally. After a lovely meal which we prepared together, we made love on a blanket on the deck at the back of the house. It was fierce and gentle at the same time, the hot air spurring us on as our sweaty, slippery bodies moved with each other, our loud moans almost causing the dogs to howl. Hell, I know I did.
When we went to the park on Saturday, I was content as I sat close to Bransworth on the SkyRide up the mountain. We were determined to put the past behind us and build something new together.
If it hadn’t been for Jenson’s insistence on doing the company hike, I might never have met Bransworth and would have missed out on something beautiful.
Thanks to the heat wave and a lump of granite called Stone Mountain, my life had taken a turn for the better.
Heat Wave: Richmond by J.M. Snyder
The call I’ve been waiting for all week long finally comes in at quarter after three on Friday afternoon. Figures. I’m backing out the screen door leading out of the supply room of the Henrico Diner, the grease trap from the grill balanced precariously on a pair of spatulas in my hands, when the iPhone in my pocket vibrates. It startles me so much, I almost drop the trap and stumble down the back step, the hot grease sloshing dangerously close to my dirty apron.
“Shit!” I lean my upper body forward as I jump back, then carefully set the trap down on the ground at my feet. The grease rolls like a brown wave but doesn’t overflow the metal sides of the trap. Thank God, or I’d be here after my shift hosing down the concrete in the late afternoon sun.
Still bent over, I dig my phone out of my pocket to answer it. Sweat drips down the back of my neck, trickles around my ears, and stings my eyes. “‘Lo?”
“Daniel Masterson?” a woman asks.
There’s something in her voice that tells me she’s sitting in a comfortably cool, air conditioned room miles away from the heat and the grease and the noise of a burger joint on a Friday after the lunch crowd has left. I straighten up and push my hair out of my face, wincing in the humid heat outside. It presses against me like a wet sponge, sopping my skin with sweat, taking my breath away. Even though I’m standing still, the back of my T-shirt is soaked through in seconds, as if I’ve been running in place. Heat this bad makes me want to die. “Yeah? Who’s this?”
I hear distaste curl through her words. “Shonda at Ginter Manor,” she tells me. “You applied for a garden apartment last week? Were you still interested in the property?”
All I hear is apartment. Excitement rises in me, chasing away the heat and the sweat. “Hell, yeah! Did I get it?”
“Your application was approved—”
“Woo!” I let out a loud whoop and punch the side of the building, which causes my co-workers inside the kitchen to glance at me.
Turning my back to them, I step away from the door and out into the parking lot. The door doesn’t slam shut, though—the grease trap still rests on the top step and props the door open. “So when can I move in?”
I almost hear Shonda checking the clock. “Well, there’s a lot of paperwork to get through. The lease needs to be typed up and signed, I’ll need your first month’s rent and security deposit, we’ll have to do a walk-through…”
It sounds to me like she’s trying to push me off until next week. But Monday is the Fourth of July, which means the management office will be closed, so I wouldn’t be able to get any of that stuff done until Tuesday at the earliest. Henrico Diner is a small, mom-and-pop type of place, and I have the whole weekend off for the holiday. If I can get the key to my new apartment tonight, I can start moving in now and be done by Tuesday, easily. Rob will help me move in—he’s already said he would, and it’s his fault I’m moving out, anyway. He owes me.
Before Shonda can tell me I have to wait the weekend, I ask, “Can I come by today?”
She heaves a tremendous sigh, as if I’m the biggest inconvenience ever. I’m bracing myself for the word no; it’s coming, I just know it is. But she surprises me when she says, “Give me a half hour to get the paperwork together. But we’re only open until five, Mr. Masterson, and it’s going to take a good forty-five minutes to go over everything. If you can’t get here by four, we’ll have to wait until—”
“I’ll be there,” I say, untying my apron strings. I’m supposed to clock out at 3:30, but if I dump the grease and scrub the grill clean, I can probably beg off early. My boss knows I’m waiting to hear on a new apartment, so I know he’ll let me go. If I don’t hit any red lights on the way home, I can shower real quick, change into something that doesn’t smell like a deli, stop by the bank to get out the money I’ll need, then rush over to Ginter Manor in time to sign my life away on a new lease.
As I end the call, it hits me. I’m finally getting a place of my o
wn. My first apartment, all mine. I can’t wait.
* * * *
Shonda said to arrive by four, and I make it to the management office of Ginter Manor with seconds to spare. My tires squeal to a stop in front of the building, and I slam the car door shut as I sprint around the back of my beat up Honda Civic, heading for the sidewalk. Through the panes of glass on the front door of the office, I see her seated at a desk in front of a computer, studiously ignoring me. When I almost barrel through the door in my haste to get inside in time, she glances up and gives me a look of pure loathing. I can almost feel her glaring at me, willing me to turn around and leave.
But when I enter the office, she’s all smiles. “Let me guess. Mr. Masterson?” she asks without rising.
“I’m Danny, yes.” I’m a little breathless from racing to make it in time. I take a chair in front of her desk without being asked and sigh. Then I laugh, excited all over again. “I made it!”
“Hmm.” She spends another minute or two typing on her computer—answering emails, most likely, or posting to Facebook, who knows? I’m sweating again, despite the air conditioning.
Finally, when it seems she isn’t going to bother getting back to me unless I do something to remind her I’m sitting right here waiting, I dig the money I withdrew from the bank out of my pocket and start counting it onto her desk. Seven hundred and ten dollars for the first month’s rent, three hundred and fifty for the security deposit. I’ve never held this much cash in my hands at one time, ever. I feel gangster peeling off the twenties as I count them under my breath. One, two, three, four, five. Two, two, three, four, five. Three, two, three, four…
She notices, how could she not? Pushing aside her keyboard, she pulls out a folder from a stack of paperwork on her desk. “Alright, then,” she says, flashing me an insincere smile. “I’m sorry we don’t have much time to go through everything, but we’re closing a little early today—”
“You said five.” I look up from my money as I lose count. “I can move in today, right?”
“Right, right,” she says, a little too quickly. “We’ll sign everything and I’ll give you the key before you leave. But it’s a holiday weekend, you know, so I’m going to have to sort of rush through this, if you don’t mind—”
I shake my head. “No, no. Whatever you have to do.” As long as I get the key tonight.
“You can come back Tuesday to go over the other stuff,” Shonda continues. “Like the pool policy, and the clubhouse rules. Nonessential things, you know what I mean.”
I nod, though I’m not really sure what she’s talking about. Still, I lean forward in my chair and try to read the lease upside down as she breezes through it—the dos and don’ts, standard things I’m already familiar with because they’re similar to what Rob’s lease entails, though technically I’m not on his. She warns me not to grill on my balcony, not to paint my walls, not to leave motorcycles or boats in the parking lots, not to bring in any pets that aren’t listed on my lease. As I don’t have any, that isn’t a problem. I have an assigned parking spot, a decal to stick on my car so it won’t get towed, a pool pass, and three keys—one for my door, one for my mailbox, and one for the clubhouse, wherever that might be.
Once I initial the pages of the lease and sign my name in a dozen different places, she gives me copies of everything and takes my money, handing me a receipt in exchange for the cash. Easy come, easy go. It’s after four thirty now, and I can tell she wants to wrap things up and head out for the day, but there’s still the walk-through.
As she hands over the folder full of my copies, she sighs. “Well, I had hoped we’d be done by now, but I guess there’s still time to take you over there and show you around.”
“Is it far?” I want to know.
She nods at the window across from her desk. Outside I see my car parked at the curb and, on the other side of the street, a row of townhouses stretches down to the end of the block. On the next block over are a pair of two-story garden apartment buildings. “You’re in the first one there,” she tells me. “Apartment G, upstairs. It’s a single with a fireplace—”
I whistle, impressed. “No way!”
She gives me an odd look. “Didn’t you look it over before you filled out the application?”
“I toured a townhouse.” I’d asked for a single apartment, and wasn’t even sure what the difference was between them. “Why’s it called a garden?”
“Because it’s all on one floor,” she explains. “The townhomes have two floors, living area on the first with the bedrooms on the second, and in the garden apartments, everything’s on one level. Since your apartment’s upstairs, you have a balcony. The ones downstairs have terraces.”
I’ll probably use a balcony about as much as I’ll use a fireplace, but it’ll give the place ambiance, if nothing else. “Okay.”
Shonda continues, “You have everything the townhomes have—full kitchen, dishwasher, washer and dryer, all inside the apartment. Central air, too. Cable ready, though you have to call the company yourself. The electric and gas are already on, so you should be good to go.”
“The first building across the block?” I get up to look out the window; I can see the apartment from here. The balcony looks promising, actually. I can imagine a few deck chairs and a table out there, kicking back after work, drinking a few beers, watching the sun go down. “Which is it again? G?”
“I’ll take you over and show you,” Shonda says. “It really won’t take too long…”
But I assure her, “No, it’s cool. Go on and start your holiday, I understand. I can go by myself.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, skeptical.
“I’m a big boy,” I joke. “I think I can figure it out.”
* * * *
I drive down the street and pull into the small parking lot between the two garden apartment buildings. Most of the spaces have both a number and a letter painted on the tarmac, which corresponds to the apartments in the buildings. I find the one marked 23G, like it says on the front of my folder, and pull into the spot. For a long moment I just sit behind the wheel of my car, taking it all in—I’m going to be living here from now on, I tell myself. I’ll be coming here after work, not Rob’s place. I’ll have friends over for dinner or to watch movies, maybe throw a Halloween party sometime, maybe…
A sporty little red car zooms into the lot at breakneck speed and skids to a stop next to mine, half in two spots. I glance over at the driver, a young woman my own age who still has that fresh out of college look going on—tousled hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, sunglasses obscuring half her face, a crop top paired with sweats that hug her round ass, and flip-flops that smack the pavement with the same sound she makes cracking her gum. I stare at her as she exits the car, trying to catch her eye, but she studiously ignores me and disappears around the back instead. I hear her pop the trunk, hear the rustle of grocery bags, and think, My first neighbor. I should probably introduce myself.
When I get out of my car, too, she still ignores me, so I lean in and grab the folder full of paperwork off the passenger seat just for something to do. By the time I’m standing, the sunglasses are pushed on top of her head and her hands are full of grocery bags.
Now she looks at me. I flash her a winning smile and say, “Hey. I’m Danny.”
Her response is anything but cordial. With an exasperated sigh, she rolls her eyes and starts to walk away. Then she notices where I’m parked and stops. “Oh, wait,” she says, as if she’s just remembered how to play nice. “Are you moving in?”
“Upstairs,” I tell her, nodding. “Apartment G? So I guess that makes us neighbors, or something?”
Shifting all the bags to one hand, she sticks out the other. “Sorry, I thought you were hitting on me. I’m Nadia. We live under you in A.”
I give her hand a good shake and follow her gaze to the terrace below mine. It’s double the size of my balcony, with two screen doors instead of the one I have. “We?” I caught that. As she st
arts to redistribute the bags, I ask, “Do you need any help?”
“Can you get the water from the trunk?” She nods at her car but doesn’t answer my other question.
We. I imagine an apartment full of sorority sisters, slumming it like Nadia here or camped out by the pool I haven’t seen yet, maybe sunning themselves on the terrace over the weekend. The downstairs apartment can’t be much larger than mine, but they probably sleep two girls to a room, so I’ll hear squeals and giggles drifting up through the floorboards at all hours of the day and night, like a perpetual slumber party, or something. They’ll run up to knock on my door, ask me to open pickle jars and come kill spiders in their bathtubs or hang pictures on their walls. It’ll be Rob’s girlfriend Lara multiplied to the nth degree.
I’m already wondering if I can’t maybe ask about any other single apartments in the complex that might be available when Nadia hoists the grocery bags over the terrace railing and hollers, “Kyle! Get out here and help me, you lazy ass.”
So, no suite full of sorority sisters but the usual boyfriend/girlfriend playing house scenario. Which lets me off the hook, then, since anything she’d need a guy to do, she already has one to do it for her. It really is Lara all over again.
As I duck down into the trunk to retrieve the case of bottled water, I hear a screen door open and shut. Someone yawns, a loud, leonine roar, then a man’s sleepy voice gripes, “You woke me up.”
“You sleep too much,” Nadia complains. “Here, take these.”
I heft the case of water out of the trunk and step around the side of the car. With my elbow, I try to close the trunk but can’t. I get it down halfway, then have to turn my back to it and catch it with my hip. In the end, I’m practically sitting on it before it clicks shut.
Her boyfriend sees me before I see him, because I hear him ask, “Who’s that?”
“Danny,” she says. “He’s moving in upstairs. Danny, this is Kyle.”
When I turn back around, he’s standing on the other side of the railing, on the terrace itself, dressed in a too-tight heather gray T-shirt and a pair of baggy Bermuda shorts. His short-cropped hair is mussed from sleep and he blinks owlishly at me, as if he’s still waking up. With his tanned skin and blond locks, he’s about as all-American as you can get, and so damn sexy, it hurts. Physically; I feel lust grip me somewhere below my balls and squeeze hard, threatening to never let go.