Hard For My Boss

by Daryl Banner

  “Look at it, Trevor. All big … and manly … and also hard.” I start to approach him. “I need someone sexy to stick it into.”

  “Make a fist and stick it in that,” Trevor retorts. Then, with a small, dignified lift of his chin, he adds in a gentler tone, “Sorry about the bowl.”

  The door shuts behind him.

  In the silence left by his departure, I lift his shirt to my face and inhale deeply. Then I pull down the waistband of my boxer briefs and free my swollen cock. I do exactly as he suggested: making a fist, sticking it in, then jerking myself raw. Every breath is Trevor as I keep the balled-up shirt pressed against my face.

  And when I come, the only thought on my mind is: I don’t give up that easily, boy.

  7

  Trevor can’t stop thinking about him.

  The arrogant rich prick, that is.

  “Dude, what the fuck happened Friday night?”

  “Not now,” I state to Elijah as I pour myself a mug of coffee, then bring it to my face to give it a gentle blowing.

  “You hate coffee.”

  “Not this beautiful Monday morning, I don’t.”

  “C’mon. You held out on me all weekend. You wouldn’t even go to the potluck Saturday.”

  “I thought you were kidding about a potluck,” I shoot back.

  “You came home freakin’ shirtless on Friday,” he goes on like a scolding mother, “and you wouldn’t talk to me then. You had ‘sad rejected date’ written all over your face. All Saturday and yesterday, you looked like someone sat on your donuts. Now, you’re hopping around all bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed this morning like you’ve got a family of frisky squirrels in your pants.”

  I return with my mug to the kitchen table—cluttered with my roommate’s dirty cups, empty beer cans, a stack of big sci-fi novels, and a PlayStation controller—and continue reading an article about one of Mr. Gage’s clients that I started on last night. I need to be prepared. Today is the day we finally meet him.

  “Talk to me, bud,” he tries again. “Was it really that bad?”

  He’s not going to give up until I let it all out. Besides, I do tell Elijah everything. We never keep secrets from one another. Even when we were kids, we’d share everything—good and bad. He was one of the first people I came out to, even before my own parents.

  “I went home with him,” I start, my eyes still glued to the article on the screen of my laptop.

  “And … what? He saw your third nipple and kicked you out?”

  I roll my eyes. “No, he didn’t see my imaginary third nipple that I don’t have, you punk. He didn’t kick me out, either. I kicked myself out, more or less.”

  Elijah lifts an eyebrow. “Why? He lived in a shithole? His dick looked like a thumb? He had a wife?”

  “Quite the opposite. A dog. And he lives in a gorgeous, upscale high-rise eight blocks in that direction.” I point without looking. “Y’know, where all the other rich pricks live up in their big fancy towers.”

  “Rich pricks, huh?” Elijah drums his fingers along the table. “Not hearing the problem yet. Dogs are amazing. I mean, cats are better, but—”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “Dude, he could’ve been your sugar daddy. You said he was an older guy, right? In that text you sent me on the way to his place?”

  I’m not really reading the article. I’ve been aggressively trying to choke away the memory of Friday night, and my roommate is making it impossible. Every second, I’m assaulted by yet another image of Ben’s striking face, his fierce eyes, and the look of his muscles in those perfectly-fitting clothes of his.

  And that beady-eyed look of hunger he gave me just before I shut the door on his face.

  That look alone fueled my jerk-off session last night.

  And the night before. And the moment I got home Friday.

  I give my mug of coffee another gentle blow. How can one love the smell of something, yet hate the taste of it? Maybe that’s a perfect metaphor for my love life; delicious to dream of, ghastly to know.

  “You realize what today is, right?” I ask him, trying to shift the subject. “I will be on-time, and by on-time, I mean fifteen minutes early. I’m not gonna wait on you.”

  “Oh, I’m ready. Hey, which tie?” he asks suddenly, lifting two options to his chin. I give him half a look, then nod at the one on the left, a black-and-grey striped one. “Good choice.” He flips up his collar to put it on without the assistance of a mirror.

  I go to take a sip of the coffee, but the burning sensation at my upper lip before I even reach the menacing liquid makes me recoil. Again, the metaphor. “Ugh. It’s like mystery lava.”

  “That’d be a nice name for some hipster coffee joint. ‘Mystery Lava Java’. Seriously, though, if the guy was that loaded—”

  “Did I mention the prick part? He’s a prick.” I shut the laptop, giving up on reading the article, and head for the bathroom to check my hair one last time.

  “How much older are we talking?”

  I bite my lip and consider it, trying to judge Ben’s face. It doesn’t take much concentration to think of it; his perfect eyes and chiseled jaw are still permanently burned in my memory. How can anyone possibly forget a face so striking and strong? I still feel his fingers on me if I close my eyes. I’ve been closing my eyes a lot since Friday. “Late twenties, I’d say.”

  Elijah snorts. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? He’s just a few years older than us—”

  “It’s still six or seven years,” I point out. “Maybe eight.”

  “—and he’s loaded, and you hightailed it out of there? On account of him being a ‘prick’? Did he insult your pretty hair or something?” I shoot Elijah a look. He chortles and parries, as if I’d physically swung a hand at him. “Just joshin’ ya!”

  “We leave in five minutes,” I remind him.

  Elijah picks up his little demon—sorry, I mean cat—from the floor and leans against the doorframe, petting the tiny monster. “You know, Mr. Gage might be in the office today, but it doesn’t mean we’re gonna meet him. We’re just interns.”

  “I’m well aware what we are.”

  “I heard from Tyson that Mr. Gage didn’t even speak a word to his last batch. Like, not one word. The man keeps to his office … goes to meetings … We may never even see him.”

  Oh, I’ll make sure he sees me. I stiffen up and fix some rogue strands of hair right at the top of my head—my evil cowlicks. “You’re gonna have cat hair all over you,” I warn him.

  He ignores the warning. “At least tell me you got a little bit of ass that night.”

  Yes, this is how my straight roommate and I actually talk. And I’m sure he’s getting a thrill with the fact that his totally clean, never-dates, by-the-book best friend finally had the potential to get some tail.

  And then freaked out and bolted for the door.

  And didn’t drop to his knees in front of that steamy mountain of muscle.

  And didn’t latch his mouth onto that man’s sculpted, meaty pecs, his tongue lapping over his sexy, hardened nipples.

  And didn’t spin that beefy man around and bury his face in his glorious, pert ass.

  I lean against the bathroom counter to stifle the boner I just gave myself. The pressure only succeeds in making me harder. I swear, my cock is a total rebel punk lately. Something is very wrong with me, and it’s all Ben’s fault.

  “Uh …” Elijah’s eyes are wide. “I’m gonna take the ringing silence to mean that you did get some ass, and it was so bad, you can’t even bring yourself to talk about it. Was his wiener, like, two and a half inches hard or something?”

  His cat Salamander, comfortable in his throne of Elijah’s arms, glares at me through the mirror; I feel his evil little feline eyes resenting my existence. “For a straight guy, you’re pretty damned caught up in the size of my date’s penis.”

  “Hey, I know you gay dudes. Size is important.”

  “No, it isn’t, actually. I don’t
care how big or little his … dick is.” Even to Elijah, speaking so openly makes me uncomfortable, as if I’m afraid some imaginary principal or parent or boss lurks around the corner, ready to scold me for my unprofessionalism. “Besides, from the tiny glimpse I got of his package, he was big.”

  “Oh, damn.” Elijah laughs, finding that funny apparently. “A rich guy with a big dick, who is a dick. Isn’t that a recipe for hot?”

  “I’m done discussing dick with you.” I decide my hair isn’t getting any less cowlicky. “Better be ready to go. It’s time.”

  “Some of the interns and I might go out for a drink after our shift today. Just one little drink.” When I stare at him dubiously, his hand freezes on the cat’s head, an eyebrow lifting. “Hey, you’re welcome to come, buddy. It’s why I’m telling you.”

  “You and ‘some of the interns’?” I throw back. “You’re already making friends at the office, are you?”

  “It’s important to get along with your coworkers.”

  He sounds exactly like Ben, who threw that same exact advice in my face when I couldn’t stop blubbering to him about my own work problems. My face reddens, recalling all that awkwardness of Friday night. “I guess you’re right. Too bad they all hate me.”

  “Nah, they don’t hate you.”

  I move past him—his cat glaring at me the whole way—and with a pat on Elijah’s shoulder, I whisper, “Put on your game face, buddy. Today, we’re gonna remind ourselves what we’re doing all of this for,” before throwing my messenger bag over a shoulder and heading for the door.

  I have a boss to impress.

  8

  Benjamin won’t wring a neck today.

  “This would be a lot easier if you’d give it to me straight,” I state into my phone in the back of the car. “Has he—or has he not—posted the apology we sent him?”

  “Yes. And also no.”

  “He cannot have done both. If he altered the apology in any way, then it was not the one we crafted for him.”

  “He made a revision or two. Y-Yes, sir.”

  I shut my eyes and pinch my nose with a couple fingers. “Tell me the revisions.”

  “Before the bit about his actions being f-foolish …” Rebekah’s voice falters. She swallows hard, then resumes. “He suggested that if any of his loyal f-f-fans thought he was out of line with what he said, then h-he …” She sighs, then clears her throat. “H-he … um.”

  “Then he …?”

  “He … would like to formally request that they … I quote … ‘go suck his parakeet’s dicky-licky’. Err, a’hem … sorry: ‘Dick-a-lick’. I read that wrong.”

  I massage my forehead. Fucking pop stars. “And that whole bit about his actions being foolish … did he ‘revise’ that, too?”

  “He cut it completely from the apology, sir.”

  My eyes flash. “That was the apology.” I keep my cool. I always do, no matter what. “Get with Jessica and the others. Tell him the ‘Jersey boy’ needs serious damage control. It’s very important we act fast. I can’t be there for three more hours, as I have to meet another client for lunch, but I’ll write a response in the next ten, then shoot it through Mimi and Vick.”

  “Do you want to speak to Haw—s-sorry—the Jersey boy?”

  “No. I’ll rip off his dick and make him suck his own if I do,” I answer coolly, helping myself to a drink from the minibar. “Get Patrick to speak to our Jersey boy Hawk. Pat’s from Jersey, he’ll get through to the punk. We need him to delete the post. Maybe we come at this from another angle. Dick-a-lick. He used a silly word, we can pass it off as his unfortunate sense of humor that gets the best of him. We can’t use the off-his-meds thing again because, like meds, the effect of that excuse has long worn off. Plus, we don’t want to make light of those with real mental illnesses. He mentioned his parakeet as well. Might want to follow any trending activity on animal rights activists, avian activists, and the like.”

  “Got it. Noted all that.”

  “Tweet out about his last leg of the tour, how many sold-out shows he has, et cetera. Oh, how about we rerun the story of that orphan kid he brought up on the stage with him during his show in San Diego. That’ll warm hearts. Flood out the negative, every outlet, and replace it with good.”

  “Will do. Anything else, sir?”

  “Yeah. Make sure my office is stocked with hard liquor by the time I’m in.” I hang up my phone with one curt tap, then toss it onto the long, empty seat by my side as I kick back the shot of brandy, which doesn’t so much as stir under the smooth, skillful driving of my faithful chauffeur.

  I’m not completely focused right now and haven’t been the whole damned weekend. It’s unfortunate timing, considering that every celebrity my company represents seems to have had some sort of crisis or another this weekend of all weekends. One client, an athlete from Michigan, slipped and said a gay slur during a radio interview. Another client punched a tooth out of a persistent super-fan with a camera. Then there’s another client, a beautiful Broadway actress in New York, who was caught on camera cussing out a restaurant manager for putting onions in her soup. The video went viral Saturday night—seven million views and quickly counting—and now she’s the Onion Wench.

  And despite all of this chaos, hysteria, and social media hell swarming around me, my mind is stuck on just one thing:

  Trevor.

  Every single minute of my Saturday was spent trying not to think about that sexy boy from Friday night. But every time I sat down to eat, my mind wandered to the way his plush lips tasted. Every time I sit in the back of this car—like I’m doing now—my hands inevitably rest in my crotch, and by just shutting my eyes, my hands turn into his, and he’s massaging me the way I wanted him to that night.

  Yeah, I did lots of “self-massaging” this weekend, pretending it was his hands.

  Self-massaging with a happy ending, every time.

  I glance over at the dividing window between my driver Ian and I. It’s shut. There’s still thirty minutes before we arrive.

  That’s thirty minutes of relief I’m gonna need right now.

  I sink into my seat and bring my hands to the button of my pants. With a flick and then a little pull, my pants are opened and my bulging underwear, revealed. Just that little act gives me such needed relief today, I sigh with pleasure.

  My hand slides up the inside of my thigh, closer, closer.

  It reaches the prized destination. Squeeze.

  “Mmm,” I moan.

  A minute or two of pure, firm, unrelenting rubbing ensues. My cock is fast to respond, pushing against the thin fabric of my boxer briefs and tenting them with desperation.

  What the hell is it about this Trevor kid? One thought of him, and my cock turns into a marble column. I keep seeing the look on his face, over and over, when I finally got his shirt off and made him sigh into a kiss. He was like food in my hands, and all I needed to do was lap him right up.

  I pull my cock out and start to stroke. Up every inch, down every inch. Even dry, my hand runs smoothly enough to bring me so much satisfaction that within seconds, my breaths grow short.

  I went back to that damned nightclub Saturday and Sunday. He wasn’t there either night, and I waited for hours.

  Keep stroking me, I tell Trevor, pretending my hand is his. Do it nice and slow. Make me want it. Make me fuckin’ crazy.

  I was approached endlessly both nights. Women. Men. Boys. Girls. Everyone from one dim wall of the thumping nightclub to the other. And every single one of them got shot down.

  I was convinced he would walk through that door looking for me. I was certain of it. There’s no way he felt nothing that night. I cast thunder through that boy, and I could see it in his lit-up eyes.

  He wanted me.

  And now that I’ve had a taste, I want more. Not just any pretty guy in a club is going to do it for me.

  I’m getting close, I warn imaginary Trevor. You’re going so slow, it’s torturing me. I’m close and you won’t
put me over the edge. Speed up.

  Trevor looks down at me, his eyes darkened with a sexy mean streak.

  Oh, I see. Now you think you’re the one in charge. Such a stubborn boy …

  That stubbornness is what turned me on and frustrated me at the same time. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met at a club before. This Trevor kid, he has a mind of his own. He questions the world. Even his eyes poured with self-awareness and yearning.

  Maybe I see him as a challenge. Maybe I’m ready to put my thumb on him, squish down his self-important attitude, and watch with amusement as he tries to fight to resist me.

  Jerk me faster. Jerk me harder. I need to come. I have to come.

  Trevor smirks down at me, stroking me so slowly that I tense and flex every muscle in my body, desperate for him to take me over the edge.

  “We’ve arrived, sir.”

  The sound of Ian’s voice jerks me out of my fantasy so hard, I sucker punch myself in the face with the back of my wrist.

  “Thank you, Ian,” I state while unceremoniously stuffing my tender, stiff cock back into its ruthless, microfiber confines. I close my eyes as the racing of my heart subsides, cursing Trevor for trapping me so expertly in this position. If he wasn’t so cute and doe eyed, I’d think he planned this whole evil scheme on me.

  Because now, I am going to have to go to that club every damned night this week, torturing myself until I see his face again. And this time, I won’t let him run away.

  9

  Trevor is working. Hard.

  The atmosphere in the office is so different, I hardly recognize it from last week. Even the non-interns are acting stiff and wary, like they’re anticipating a great, scary thing to happen. The front receptionist’s smile looks pasted on, a mask. Even the sound of the wizards typing at the cubicles is reluctant, like they’re afraid to disturb someone’s nap. The break room is spotless, free of any stray Tupperware containers or crumpled-up napkins.

  I spend my first few hours organizing folders, as per my cold, rigid supervisor Rebekah’s orders. She seems utterly unchanged, assigning each of us our tasks and then disappearing to her office to “take a call” every five minutes.