Full Release

by Marshall Thornton

  I could feel his semi-hard cock dragging along the table next to my hand. I reached out and took hold of it. I pulled on it a few times, and it sprang to life. It felt as impressive as it had looked in his photo. I rubbed a finger over its large mushroom head. Then, Eddie moved to the top of the table. Reluctantly, I let his prick fall out of my hand.

  Through the headrest, I could see Eddie’s feet on the floor. They were well manicured and had a tan line from the flip-flops he’d probably worn all summer. He rubbed my back, beginning at the shoulders and with long strokes pushing all the way down to my buttocks. I could feel his growing erection press against the top of my head. I lifted my head and took his cock in my mouth. Eddie stopped stroking my back. I reached up and cupped his balls in one hand as I bobbed my head up and down on him.

  He let out a muffled, “Yeah, that’s it.”

  The conflict I’d felt was gone. I wasn’t lying there passively any longer. I ran my tongue from this base of his stalk up to the head. I popped the top of his prick in and out of my mouth until I could feel it thickening even more. My neck quickly grew sore, bent the way it was. But I was enjoying sucking his cock too much to change position.

  I’d begun to wonder how long it might take to make him come when he said, “Turn over, please.”

  I didn’t really want to, but he was the masseur. He was in charge. A little frustrated, I dropped his dick from my mouth and reluctantly flipped over. My cock was hard, the tip poking at my belly button.

  Eddie moved down the table. He began to work my thighs, running his hands up and down them. Teasingly, letting his hands dip between my legs, brushing against my ball sac and then floating away. He ran his hands up and down my thigh again, this time they fluttered over my cock and down my other thigh. I gasped a little. He chuckled softly.

  He continued to run his hands over me again and again. It felt like waves caressing me, like the ocean getting me off. I lifted my hips to meet him the next time he came up. Gently, he pushed me back down to the table. I tried to relax as he slowly began to pump my cock. I bent a little to the left, and he adjusted his arm so that he could easily follow my natural curve without tugging or pulling at me. He began to increase his speed.

  I placed my hand on the dip at the top of Eddie’s ass, my fingers resting in the crack. He picked up his pace, and suddenly I was coming -- jizz spilling out of me all over Eddie’s fist. He kept jacking me until I shuddered and reached down to stop him.

  He stood next to me for a moment, then walked out of the room. I heard the water run in my bathroom. A few moments later, he came back with a damp towel. He wiped off my dick and my belly. When I was clean, I sat up but he put a hand in the middle of my chest.

  “Your hour isn’t over. I am not finished.”

  For another twenty minutes, he expertly massaged my muscles, leaving me feeling loose and rubbery. I wondered if I should offer to help him get off. In other situations, where cash did not exchange hands, it would be rude not to offer. But Eddie might have other clients that day. He might not want to get off, since it could make getting hard difficult or unpleasant later on.

  When he was finally done, he asked, “Relaxed?”

  “Very,” I replied.

  While he took down the table, I put on my fancy underwear and took seven twenties, plus another as a tip, out of my pocket. I handed the money to Eddie. He stepped forward and hugged me. With a smile, he picked up his portable table and was ready to leave. There didn’t seem to be anything to say, so I walked him to the door.

  “Thank you,” I said, as though he were a plumber who’d just fixed a drain.

  “It was my pleasure.”

  After I shut the door, I realized I had a smile on my face. I was pleased with myself. It was a relief not to wonder if he might call me, or when I should call him. I didn’t have to worry about whether he liked me. All that mattered was that I had liked him. I could hire him again sometime, or not, and I didn’t have to worry about anyone’s feelings being hurt. We had both gone into this knowing what to expect, and gotten exactly that. All in all, I had to admit my time with Eddie had been the most successful, most pleasant relationship I’d had in ages.

  Chapter Two

  Almost two weeks later, Eddie called me.

  It was a Wednesday. A rough Wednesday. My department was pulling together what we call “the ultimates”, which is a subjective process whereby we guesstimate how much a particular film will earn in each market it enters. The sales people from each division stop by, and we sit down to estimate their expected sales figures. The closer we come to reality, the better.

  That morning, I spent a half an hour trying to explain to Fred Metz, a dimwitted VP with an MBA, why he wasn’t going to be able to earn two million dollars selling The Taking of Flight 16 to his airline clients.

  “But they’re trying to get Will Smith.” Fred crossed his legs and attempted to look superior. “And it’s historical,” he added, since it was set in the sixties.

  “I don’t think even Will Smith can sell a film about a plane hijacking to the airlines, even if it is historical. I mean, would you want to watch that at thirty thousand feet?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “The hijackers crash the plane at the end,” I explained. I could tell by the look on his face he hadn’t read the entire script, even though he was one of the few people on our end of the studio who regularly received scripts. I’d only read the script because my boss delegates the reading of action films to me -- while covering romantic comedies herself.

  He frowned, and I could tell he was about to insist again that I didn’t understand his market, when my phone buzzed and I was called into my boss’s office. My heart moved up into my throat. It was nearly time for my yearly review, which meant the possibility of a promotion or at least a healthy raise. My financial situation was crap, and I was desperate to start pulling myself out of the hole Jeremy had made in my finances.

  The accounting department was located in a nine-story building across the street from the main lot. It was a drab glass and metal building that wasn’t likely to make it onto anyone’s tour. The studio itself had changed hands, and names, so many times in the last two decades that they probably put some stationers’ entire extended family through college. Recently, we’d been purchased by a German conglomerate, which resulted in a lot of nervousness and some unpleasant Nazi jokes.

  Sonja Cartier’s office was two down from mine. Between us, in a miniscule office that had once been a supply room, was Charles Odom, a thirty-something closet case who ran ten miles each morning and had a binge-purge eating disorder and a penchant for undergoing plastic surgery on his vacations. I always did my best not to peek in as I walked by. Across from my office and his were two cubicles, which housed Tiffany Edwards, a forty-five year old frazzled single mom, and Bill Wilson, who’d been at the company since the seventies and was coasting his way to retirement. Outside Sonja’s office was an open station for her assistant, an aspiring actress named Meribelle who was clearly going nowhere.

  Sonja’s office was small for a corner office, but still denoted her status as Executive Vice President Finance. It was tastefully decorated in early stockbroker: mahogany desk with a brass lamp, royal blue carpeting, forest green sofa, subtle fleur-de-lis pattern on the drapes. She’d even chosen two prints depicting foxhunts, which sometimes led people to question whether she’d inherited the office and never put her own stamp on it. But that was Sonja’s pattern. Be conservative. Don’t make waves. Fit in.

  When I walked in, she told me to shut the door. Pacing behind her desk, she’d taken off the jacket to her well-tailored, gray suit. I had a sinking feeling things were not about to go my way.

  “I just heard,” she said, then paused dramatically, “we’re re-engineering.”

  Re-engineering is a polite way of saying that the new owners would be laying off a lot o
f people to make the books look good. I felt my raise and promotion slip away.

  “I’m going to do everything I can to protect you,” Sonja promised.

  “Thank you,” I said. Of course, the fact that I needed protecting didn’t make me feel particularly safe.

  “We’re going to have to give them someone, though. The rumor is they’re asking for a ten percent reduction from every department.”

  “I suppose we could do without Bill,” I said, though I’d rather have gotten rid of Charles. Bill was useless, while Charles actually got in the way.

  “The thing about Bill is he’s so close to retiring. If I let him go now and we go through this again in a year then I’m royally screwed.”

  “You think we’ll go through this again?” I asked, a little dumbfounded.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “The Germans only want us because they think the Japanese do. They’ll either sell us to the Japanese at a huge profit, or the Japanese won’t actually want us and we’ll get dumped for cheap. What about Tiffany?”

  I liked Tiffany. She had a bubbly personality and a can-do attitude. It’s true she had trouble working overtime since she had two teenaged boys to keep an eye on and a penchant for over-extending herself. She was currently taking two college classes at night. But the quality of her work was better than either Charles or Bill. I said so.

  “You have an issue with Charles, don’t you?” she asked.

  Here I had to be careful. Sonja liked Charles for some reason, so I had to be delicate if I wanted her to understand he was actively stupid. “Charles isn’t a problem-solver.”

  “I think you’re underestimating him,” was her response to my gentle criticism.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said, diplomatically. “I’ll keep an eye on him and see how he does with any problems that come his way.”

  Actually, I was saying that Sonja should keep an eye on him. Which she totally got, since her jaw locked and she looked down at some papers on her desk. “Of course, I suppose I could go strictly by seniority,” she said in a frosty voice.

  I was last hired, and while I out-ranked the rest of my department by title, she could still use seniority as a reason to let me go -- and save more money than she would on any of the other three.

  “Whatever you think is best. It is your dec--”

  Suddenly, my pocket vibrated. I tried to subtly ease my cell phone out of my pocket and peek at the screen. It was my ex. This was a tough call. I didn’t want to talk to Jeremy any more than I wanted to continue my uncomfortable conversation with Sonja. She made the decision for me.

  “Go ahead and take it. This is all rumor, anyway. Maybe it won’t happen.” But from the tone of her voice, she was sure it would.

  When I got back to my office, Fred Kohl had disappeared. Smaller than Sonja’s, my office was furnished in the standard black desk and credenza given to all mid-level management. Somewhere in the building there was a two hundred page guide outlining who could have what furnishings and at what level. If I ever got bumped up to Executive Director from Director, I’d be able to pick out another potted plant and choose my own prints for the walls. Sometimes I thought we should re-engineer the design department.

  I hit answer on my cell and there was Jeremy. “Hey, how’s it going?” His voice was mellow and overly sincere.

  “Great. It’s going great,” I replied, splitting the difference between irony and an outright lie.

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Do you want something in particular?”

  “I can’t just call you?”

  “No, you can’t.”

  He left a long pause and then said quietly, “Skye has asked me to marry him.”

  It was my turn to be silent. Absently, I calculated the amount of time during our breakup Jeremy and I had spent on the telephone not saying anything. After a year of this, I put the total at about fifteen minutes. Finally, I asked, “Are you waiting for me to congratulate you?”

  “You know what I’m waiting for. We need to settle things.” We’d been trying to undo our domestic partnership for almost a year. I wasn’t sure why he thought his impending marriage would make that any easier.

  “All we really need to do is work out the property agreement. Then we’re set,” I pointed out.

  “I really don’t want to end up in court, Matt.” Jeremy was not the type to issue veiled threats. I was sure Skye was behind his saying that.

  “No, you don’t,” I replied simply.

  “I’m sure we can do this amicably.”

  “I’m sure we can, too. Just as soon as you give me forty-seven thousand nine hundred sixty-four dollars and thirty-seven cents.” This was the exact amount of money we had left from the second mortgage we’d taken out to upgrade the kitchen and the bathroom. The exact amount Jeremy had withdrawn and used to rent and furnish an apartment for himself in West Hollywood so he could explore the independence he craved, yet quickly threw aside when he fell in love two months into the adventure. The exact amount that had evaporated in a canceled lease, a new wardrobe, a slightly used BMW, and the apparently lavish courtship of hairdresser and failed reality-TV star, Skye Davis.

  “It’s always about money with you, isn’t it?” Jeremy said in a gentle, disapproving tone.

  “Be careful. You don’t want me tacking on your half of the mortgage payments you haven’t paid in the last year. That’s another fifteen-thousand dollars, give or take.”

  “I’ve decided to sign the house over to you. And we’ll say the forty thousand is my share of the equity.”

  I sighed heavily. “Do you live under a rock? The real estate market collapsed. There’s no equity in the house. The market has fallen, and the house isn’t worth what we owe on it. Even with a kitchen.”

  “But--”

  I knew he was about to start talking about the nearly hundred grand we’d put down, which was three-quarters mine anyway, so I interrupted him. “If you don’t believe me, talk to a real estate agent.”

  “Why can’t you just be happy for me?”

  After you break up with a person, you begin to be honest about their more annoying habits. For example, when faced with incontrovertible facts Jeremy would revert to pure emotion. It drove me crazy, and in a weird way I felt sorry for Skye, who now had to put up with this on a daily basis. I told Jeremy I had to get back to work and hung up.

  I tried to focus on a report detailing the complete un-profitability of one of last year’s releases. As the film was little more than a ninety-six minute search for a condom, I had to wonder why anyone thought it wise to spend almost eighty million dollars producing it. Of course, the whole production process was shrouded in mystery. Why we made the movies we made and spent what we spent on them was often stunningly illogical. But I’m an accountant. Accountants think producing films should be about making money. Clearly something else was at play.

  I worried if I should tell Tiffany about the re-engineering. It might not be real, but then again, if it was, she could certainly use this time to look for another job. I should probably give her a couple of contacts. Her cubicle sat just outside my office. If I moved my chair to the right, I could see her through my door. I slid my chair over and waved. She waved back and returned to her work. I should have given up; I was about to do something stupid and knew it. I cleared my throat to get her attention. She looked up, and I waved her into my office. Tiffany got up and looked both ways before she scooted into my office. If anyone saw her do that, they’d know for sure something was up.

  Tiffany was a stark contrast to our stunningly vain co-worker, Charles. She carried a few extra pounds around her hips and was always failing at some new exercise program. She’d chosen not to bother with the strands of gray that were popping up in her thick crop of brunette hair. She looked like a real woman in a city of mannequins.

  “Sit down,” I sai
d, handing her the report on No Glove, No Love. “Pretend we’re going over this.”

  “Oh God, this can’t be good,” she said, and she was right. Quickly and quietly, I told her what had happened in Sonja’s office.

  “This couldn’t have come at a worse time. Cameron got into a little downloading trouble. My ex and I are splitting the fine, but it’s not cheap.”

  “I thought you took Cameron’s computer away from him?”

  “We did. He bought a new one, piece by piece. Put it together himself.” There was a little pride in her voice. “He claimed he was buying books. I mean, how can you not give a kid money when he says he’s gonna buy books?”

  My cell vibrated again. My first thought was that Jeremy had decided to call me back and torture me some more. Or worse, have Skye do it. That thought made me shiver. I glanced at the number; I didn’t recognize it.

  “Let me take this,” I said to Tiffany. “I’ll call around and see if there’s anything open at other studios. And don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  I had no idea if everything would be fine, of course. It’s just what you said in this situation. She popped out of my office, and I looked at the screen on my cell. Eddie was calling me. I answered, thinking that maybe he’d left something at my house, though in the two weeks since our encounter, I hadn’t noticed anything.

  “Hey, Matt. It’s Eddie. I’ve been thinking about you.”

  “Uh-huh.” I had a sense of where this was going, so I told him, “I’m sorry, but I can’t afford to see you again.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause. Which was beginning to seem like the theme of the day. “My feelings are hurt,” Eddie said. “I thought we had something.”

  “It was great,” I said truthfully. “It’s just...money’s a little tight.”

  “We don’t have to worry about that, okay?”

  Was he offering me credit or… “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “Oh, wow.” I was taken completely by surprise. I toyed with the idea for a second, but there was no way I could date someone who had sex for money. “I’m really flattered. I am, I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”