by Forest, Will
“I’m going to have a word with your manager.”
“Please go right ahead,” said Renee. “He’s over in the DJ booth.”
When the customer walked away, Renee grabbed Terrence’s hand and led him to one of the private rooms.
“I didn’t know you’d be here tonight.”
“I wanted to surprise you. I…”
Renee swallowed Terrence’s lips before he could finish.
“You…such a sexy…hunk,” moaned Renee between kisses.
“You’re the sexy one, baby.” Terrence sat down and pulled Renee onto his lap.
“Thanks for the portraits! They’re terrific!” Renee found a nipple beneath Terrence’s shirt and twisted it gently as she drew out her next question: “Is that what you really look like?”
“Do you wanna find out?”
“Yeah, I want to get to know you real well.” She ran a hand down his chest, resting it between his legs.
Terrence threw his head back and thrust his hips into the air. Renee pushed back, feeling the bulge in his pants grow.
“What…am I allowed to do? You know…can I touch you?”
“Honey, don’t you worry about house rules. You’re not a customer. You’re my man.” Renee rubbed his thighs. “I’m yours. Touch me.”
Renee led his fingers to her chest, and slaked the thirst of his hand for the cup of her breast. His other hand circled her behind, squeezing her closer to him. “You don’t know how much I’ve desired you, since I laid eyes on you in class. You are so…confident…”
Renee pulled her top off. “Show me, Terrence.”
His mouth, like a ravenous fish, attached to her left breast as it appeared before his face. She undid his zipper and rubbed him through his briefs, finally pulling the cloth aside to liberate him. He gasped, letting her breast fall free from his lips, and then began licking her right nipple. She rubbed against him, grinding her hips back and forth.
“…that’s what she said, something about a painting, and then she came in here…” The door to the private room opened. Terrence stared at the angry customer and tried to get up, but Renee held him still and kept moving her hips.
“Is there a problem?” she asked, reaching behind herself to tickle his perineum with her long nails.
“Renee…er, Princess, you know the rules,” the manager stammered.
“Look, this is my boyfriend, he’s not a customer.”
Terrence’s eyes rolled in disbelief.
The manager’s face flushed. “Then you’re not supposed to be fucking him on the job, on my time, in my establishment!” he growled.
“All these years at Ricky’s and you still don’t know what that is.” Renee licked her lips. “We’re not fucking, we’re making loooooovvvve.”
“Not on my time you’re not!” The manager tried to pull Renee off Terrence. Terrence pulled her back down. The amused customer chuckled. At some point Renee stepped down from Terrence’s lap and he quickly pulled his pants up. The manager kept yelling while Renee put her top on, but the customer lost interest and left. Assigning all the blame to Terrence, the manager reluctantly fired one of his top performers.
Renee, emotionless, left an unsettled Terrence in the room for a few moments as she ran back to empty her locker. Then, tousled and agitated, they both stumbled out the back door into an alley. Renee adjusted her blouse and Terrence finally buttoned his pants, as they sought out each other’s eyes with growing smiles. Renee laughed out loud. “Oh! I am SO happy! I want to shout your name! Terrence! Terrence! Terrence!”
“You’re not upset? What about your job?”
“Oh, honey, Ricky’s done me a favor! I don’t ever want to go back there. I have WAY too much self-confidence for that job. Come here!” She grabbed Terrence, who felt overwhelmed but much relieved, and pulled him into a big, wet smooch.
“That angry dude who wanted a lap dance? Can’t you imagine I’m sick of that crap?” she explained. “You, you my man, I’m letting you rescue me because I like you. But even if you walked away from me right now I wouldn’t go back. I don’t want to be involved with that plastic body, look-but-don’t-touch mess anymore. I want real bodies, earthy bodies, I want a man looking at me who loves me for who I am and who—because I will decide to let him—who will touch every inch of my body.”
“And who will let you do the same.”
“You are SO right. See, we’re on the same wavelength here! Terrence we’ve got to find someplace because I want some body exploration right now…” She began convulsing and moaning joyfully while Terrence started moving her toward his car.
“I’m the luckiest man alive.”
“You better believe it! You are so lucky I posed for your class. See, that’s more like it. More natural. Oh, but do you know how exhausting it was to stand still like that, and how little I was paid? And how easy it is to dance at Ricky’s?
“I’ll miss the money from Ricky’s, that’s true,” she said. “But I tell you I was the only sane person there. All those girls live for their next surgery. A few months’ earnings and a week or two of downtime sacrificed on the altar of big boobs, for more demand for lap dances in return…It’s awful, Terrence.” She stared at him from the passenger seat as he reached over to help her strap herself in. She caught his hand and stroked it. “Thank you, Terrence. Thank you for rescuing me. Thank you for believing in me and for believing in yourself.”
Her eyes had moistened. Terrence kissed them and said, “You are a wonderful woman.”
She kissed his neck. “I live in a single, remember?”
“You better be ready for some serious exploration ‘cause I’m gonna show you…”
She shrieked with delight, interrupting him. “Oh, just hurry up! Drive me, Terrence!”
The sedan squealed out of the lot. Renee did not look back.
So Much Skin
Standing in the Humanities Building courtyard at ten minutes to midnight on Halloween, his shirt in his hands, Greg realized too late that he had failed to contemplate the logistical necessity of where to stash the clothes he was about to take off. Many of the arriving students were toting backpacks for their clothes. He didn’t recognize anybody from the cross-country team. That middle-aged guy over there—wasn’t he a professor? Then Greg saw Alex and Brian approaching, walking along sideways, sharing the weight of a huge trunk.
“Hey everybody, thanks for showing up,” yelled Alex. “Hey Dr. Ross! This is gonna be great! I’m psyched!”
“Just keep it down, Allo,” somebody said. “You’ll attract too much attention.”
“Right. Sorry. Look—the paints are in these bags, we’ve got, like, six glow-in-the-dark colors—and this monster locker is for our clothes. Four things: First, we wait ‘til everybody’s painted and ready before we head out, because we have to stay together! Second, the route is a circle from here to the Campus Center, to the library and then around back here. Third, we did our best to misinform the cops, but if you see any out, just keep running. And last, this big trunk for our clothes is gonna be hidden right over here between these hedges and the wall. Got it?”
“Let’s paint!”
Greg felt his exposed abdomen contract in anticipation of the cool night air. The prescience of doing something forbidden… The only times he had taken his clothes off in a group had been with his cross-country and track teammates in the lockers, but now there were so many young women around! Some students had already started to disrobe, and as he watched, a young woman lifted her blouse over her head, baring her breasts: no bra. Greg looked away. He didn’t want to be caught staring; he hadn’t even meant to be watching, he just happened to be facing in that direction. He felt the blood flow to his penis increase, even though he noticed that other young men were scrambling out of their clothes without erections.
Greg quickly buried his gaze in his feet. Forced to recognize what little control he had over his own body, he began reciting the multiplication tables while turning around to face the wall
. He removed his sandals, shorts, and finally his briefs. He decided to concentrate on putting his clothes away, looking only at the ground as he walked to the trunk, but on his way there Alex called out to him.
“Hey Greg, glad you could make it!”
Greg made eye contact to reply, but even as he registered the fact that he could not avoid seeing naked flesh all around him, he discovered the inanity of trying to avert his gaze from so many bodies, so much skin. It was glorious! But the wind stirred, and to thwart an impending erection he quickly focused on counting, in Chinese, how many people were there. As he counted he saw stripes and spots and smiley faces invade the human canvas all around him, and just as he reached number forty, with probably a dozen more people to count, a young woman with some paintbrushes interrupted him.
“What’s it gonna be? Nothing too complicated, we wanna get going, you know!”
Greg stared at her bright blue belly, painted round like a globe with green continents, and her breasts filling out the sun and moon. “Me?”
“Alright, you obviously haven’t thought about it. Just hold still.”
Instantly, his knees and shins turned yellow. Then he felt a brush slide quickly over his right buttock and land, with a little jump, on his left to make a stripe across his behind.
“Now reach around you and put your hands on your butt,” he heard the young woman tell him. “Wait – a little bit lower…there! See? Now you’ve got a hand pattern on your red ass and you’ve got red hands.” She painted a final red stripe across his chest. “You were caught red-handed!”
“Thanks! Hey, can you paint some butterflies on my stomach?”
She had moved on to someone else. Greg stared at his hands, the paint still wet. Just as he was about to plant them on his thighs, another young woman, covered with green stripes, grabbed one of his wrists.
“Do me a favor, please?” She winked at him, then called to her friend, “Turn around here, I’m gonna do your backside.”
The young man with her turned around. He was painted like she was, with green stripes all over. The young woman motioned at Greg to place his hands on her friend’s bottom. Greg refused. She gave him a stern look. He didn’t budge, so she laughed and clutched his hands in hers, smearing the paint all over her palms and fingers, and then placed her hands firmly on the other man’s buttocks.
“There you go, honey,” said Renee. “It looks like you’ve just been spanked.”
Terrence turned back around.
“Thank you,” Renee said to Greg with a big smile.
“Hey, aren’t you on the cross-country team?” asked Terrence. “I think I’ve seen you running around campus with Alex and the team.”
“That’s right.”
“What do you run?”
“Mostly 5Ks and shorter.”
“So is this like just another race for you?” asked Renee.
“Sure, I guess,” said Greg.
“I think we’re ready to get going!” It was Alex, his voice like a whisper-shout. “Let’s move out!”
The Body Electric
Tired but satisfied after a long evening of number-crunching statistics, Angela Saucedo left the GCU library shortly after midnight. The trick-or-treaters were long gone; she missed the soundtrack of gleeful shouts and crumpling leaves, and the flashes of costumed kids with glowing wands and orange orbs that she had glimpsed on her way to the library earlier. But as she walked down University Boulevard on the campus side, she thought she saw, out of the corner of her eye, another group of trick-or-treaters beyond the hedges. They were moving quickly, in fact too quickly, she realized as she turned the corner, cleared the hedge and saw that instead of costumed tykes these were body-painted co-eds streaking the campus! She caught her breath. She desired to throw her clothes off in an instant and streak too, but she reminded herself that she had returned, after all, to the States once again, and there could be unwelcome consequences. But this only made her jealous, so jealous that she, too, couldn’t run, that she had never done anything like that when she was an undergraduate…
More of them were coming, clearing the hedge. Is that Greg? And Renee? From the sidewalk they were just a little too far away to tell for sure. It doesn’t matter, she thought, because we feel exposed when we shed our clothes, but when it’s done in a group then we’re almost anonymous. Especially from a distance. Wait a second, that man seems a bit older. I guess he saw me, he’s coming this way, I’ve seen him on some faculty committee or something.
“Hey you education professor, what are you staring at? Don’t just stand there, come on!” Christopher yelled as he stopped, planting his hands on his knees and panting, waiting for his colleague to undress. His body displayed its phosphorescent skeleton, blue bones painted along his pale limbs.
“Weren’t you on the university planning committee?” Angela asked. She started to take off her jacket but was impeded by the deliberation of where to put her clothes.
Christopher read her thoughts. “Just put them behind this hedge…and we’ll come back for them. Hurry up already! You know you want to!”
Angela grinned at the taunt and shed her clothes as fast as she could, wrapping them up in a ball inside her jacket and thrusting them under the hedge with her overstuffed woven bag. Christopher pointed toward the pond. “We’re going through the woods to Humanities. Think you can make it? My clothes are there. I’ll give you a ride back here for yours.”
“What’s your name, anyway?” Angela asked as she sprinted away.
She heard a yell behind her: “Anonymous!”
***
Greg matched Alex’s pace at the front of the streak. He felt his toes pumping the wet grass. He felt the wind, full force, against his chest, his abdomen, his shins. Most pleasurably, he felt his penis and scrotum bobbing up and down, occasionally back and forth, between his thighs. Why on earth doesn’t this happen more often, he asked himself, sincerely astonished. This is like…like what? Like learning you can do something new with your body that you never even suspected, like learning how to fly. Like a joy unleashed, and like a oneness with humanity. He slowed down, wanting to live the moment more than run yet another race, and he was treated to the vision of his fellow students jumping on and off benches, just for the sheer enjoyment of it, and hugging trees, and stopping, far too briefly, to roll in the autumn leaves.
A young woman jogged by in front of him, her orange breasts oscillating up and down and her ponytail slapping her yellow shoulders right and left. Greg smiled and stopped completely for a moment, placing his red hands on his yellow knees. He looked around him: everywhere, iridescent bodies running naked through the night of All Hallow’s Eve! Exhilarated, he felt his scrotum contract and his penis stir with the novelty of the chill breeze, and then a hand slapping his right buttock.
“Don’t stop now, Mr. 5K!” Terrence called out as he sprinted past with Renee, blending into the darkness until all Greg could see were the green stripes down their backs and the pale soles of their feet flashing up and down in unison.
And Greg understood. He collapsed onto the cool grass a little out of the way, rolling around with his knees up so the approaching streakers wouldn’t trample him. “I sing the body electric!” he hollered to the sky. There were no clouds; the stars and the luscious moon shone as naked as he. He lay there a few minutes, enchanted by his worm’s-eye view of the muscular multicolor pillars that were the legs striding past him, and the arching rainbow backs, the wavering paisley buttocks, the bouncing polka-dot nipples. When he sensed he was the last, he jumped up and chased after them as fast as he could. “Hey, wait up! Wait for me!”
***
The sound of the footsteps grew closer. Finally Christopher caught up with Angela, but only to ask, between breaths, if they could walk for a while.
“Are you nuts? This is a streak, you know. The object is to NOT get caught.”
“But we’re…in this wooded area and…the rest of the streakers are far ahead…I just find it…difficult to
carry on a…conversation while running.”
Angela stopped. “Alright, Anonymous, let’s walk, but just as far as the field over there.”
“Thanks. And thanks for coming. My name’s Christopher Ross, by the way. I teach philosophy. I thought I was going to be the only professor in the group.”
“Did you organize the streak?”
“No. A student named Alex. I met him at La Rioja Beach.”
“The nude beach!”
“Have you been there?”
“Many times. One of my favorite places.”
“The day I went started out great, but it was ruined when some MPs showed up.”
“Were you arrested?”
“I was arrested, fingerprinted, the works. No jail time though.”
“I’m sorry you had such bad luck. La Rioja is normally a fairly laidback place.”
“That’s what Alex said.”
“Do you realize we’re completely alone now? All the other streakers are probably dressed by now.”
“Yeah, here we are, strolling through campus at, what time is it?” Christopher looked at his watch, which, of course, he had not removed, “12:30 in the morning, not wearing a shred of clothing.”
“I’ve never had a more promising blind date.”
Christopher stopped and smiled at Angela. “Blind dates are set up ahead of time. This, my dear I-think-you’re-an-education-professor-and-I-still-don’t-even-know-your-name, was fate.”
“My name is Angela Saucedo, and you’re right, I’m an education professor.”
Christopher bowed very formally. His shadow, cast by a campus security light pole, extended toward her as he did. “Angela, I am enchanted to meet you. Most especially under these circumstances.”
“The pleasure is mine.” Angela pretended to curtsy, raising an imaginary skirt. “I hate to say this, but I think we need to go find our clothes.”
“Part of me recognizes you’re right, but a bigger part of me wishes you were wrong.”