Best Job in the World

[Note: As is often the case, the day I wrote this vignette, which doesn't pretend to be a full story, I woke up with this storyline in my mind. As also is often the case, I have no idea what my mind was referencing when it created it.]

"What a crock of crap this is," Philip Metcalf muttered to himself—there being no other figure in his plush office overlooking the activity on the editorial floor below him through a bank of glass windows. "And I think we've used this title a hundred times before. Just how gullible can our readers get? How did Tony let this one get past him?"

He held up the grainy cover of one of his company's best-selling pulp sex mags and peered at the title "My Life as a Male Pole Dancer" that was blazoned in screamy red lettering half way down the contents list.

He flipped open the magazine to the article and read, "Who would have guessed that a corn-fed lad from Iowa would wind up . . .?"

Just the usual shit; a country hick waving his booty on some dive's bar and calling it sexy, Philip thought. We don't run pics on his sort of trash anymore. Tony's lost all touch with whatever creativity and sense of the fresh he'd ever had. For the third time today, the publisher of the chain of girlie and homo rags contemplated firing his managing editor. But he knew that Tony probably did have a good feel for the readership. He also knew that firing Tony would require finding another managing editor. And doing that would interfere with Philip's golf game. This has gotta be the shittiest job in the world, Philip thought.

He slapped the magazine down on the expansive, shiny top of his mahogany desk and picked up the letter sitting next to the magazine. "I can't think you enuff for running my story. It make me feel like a millun bucks," it began. "I seen your photo in a magasine, and I think you are a very handsum man. I wish there was some way I could show my gratude for . . ."

I didn't even notice this story in the magazine until I got this letter, Philip fumed. And when I went down and reamed Tony after I had seen, he just gave me a wary look and said he'd handled it. Having the hay seed pole dancer ask for an appointment to see me was Tony's idea of "fixing it?" This I gotta see.

Philip snorted and dropped the letter. He couldn't bring himself to read any more. Illiterate. The guy couldn't even write a letter. How had any story he had written ever gotten to be published—even in one of Philip's rags? But the hilarious spelling of the letter had been exactly why Philip hadn't shunted the appointment back downstairs when the guy had called in, wanting to see him. Maybe he'd get Tony up here and lower the boom on them both at the same time.

"This has got to be the world's crappiest job," he murmured. With a sigh, he reached over and punched the intercom button on his telephone. "OK, Vicky, you can tell the guy out there to come in now."

Philip was somewhat taken aback by the handsome, blond, neatly dressed young man who entered his office, carrying some sort of electronic device under his well-muscled arm. He'd expected some sleazy dirt bag chewing on a strand of oats.

"Listen, son," he said, as the smiling young man, looking at the same time both innocent and fetching with the lock of blond hair swirling down to his pale-blue eyes, walked to the desk and placed a boom box on the top, "if this is about payment for the story, we don't pay for three months, and you should address all queries on that to . . ."

"You're even better in person than in the photos, Mr. Metcalf. I do want to thank you for running my story, and I've thought of how I hope I can thank you the right way. The guy downstairs I showed the story to certainly liked the way I thanked him for publishing it."

His voice was soft and rich. It had some sort of twang to it, which Philip thought might be Iowa. But who was he to know? He hadn't been any further west from Jersey City than Philadelphia. The young man was so good looking, though, and seemed so assured of himself that Philip was at a loss for words and just sat there, mesmerized, as the young man pushed a button on the boom box, causing music—pretty loud music with a strong bass beat—to boom forward.

Philip's eyes followed the young man as he moved with arresting, mincing steps back to the office door, shot the lock home with a sharp click, and then moved from window to window overlooking the editorial floor below, and snapped the blinds shut.

He turned and gave Philip a smile and a provocative look, and Philip sank into his plush executive chair and gave a little groan. It was beginning to dawn on him why Tony had agreed to run the guy's story—and also why sending the guy up to see him was how Tony thought the problem would be taken care of. It obviously wasn't the sweet young thing's writing that was convincing about his story's worth.

The young man obviously was in full control. Philip hadn't imagined this would go this way. He wouldn't have let him in for an appointment at all except that he had been looking forward to seeing what an illiterate, corn-fed country yokel from Iowa looked like as comic relief on an otherwise dull day.

The young man's hips started swaying and he pulled his polo shirt over his head.

Philip sucked air. The guy was really cut—ripped. He wasn't muscle bound, but every muscle was in place, fully developed, and part of a luscious package. His smooth, tanned torso was moving with the beat of the music, and his pecs were flexing and releasing right on the beat.

"My name in the magazine is listed as 'Charles,' but you can call me Chucky."

Of course I can, Philip thought, anything he could actually say, though, caught in his throat, which was constricting. He could feel a low growl of lust building from the center of his chest, busting to break out, but trapped inside by air moving in the wrong direction.

"All my friends call me Chucky, and we're going to be very good friends, you and me, I think. The man downstairs was happy to be my friend. He liked my story enough to print it. So I think you'll like me too. And I got lots of ideas for stories. I bet this will make a good story too." Chucky laughed. Philip couldn't manage much more than a gurgle.

Oh, god, I hope so, Philip thought. Chucky had pulled two long, red silk scarves from somewhere, and he was using them to dance in place with. Philip's eyes followed the slide of the scarves as Chucky moved them provocatively around and across his smooth, lightly tanned torso.

When Chucky reached down and jerked off his breakaway pants with one swift movement, Philip gasped, and a hand involuntarily went to his basket, which was already tenting out.

"Do you like me?" Chucky asked in a low, melodic voice. "Do you think I make a good story?"

All Philip could muster in reply was a low, guttural sound rising up from his gorge. His eyes were popping out at just how exotic—and suggestive—were Chucky's undulating movements to the beat of the boom box music. And he was reminded yet again how much better this was in real life than just reading fantasies about it and looking at photographs depicting it in the magazines he published. He sometimes got so bogged down in the tiring, dull business end of selling sex that he forgot what got him into this business.

He reached over and punched the intercom button and managed to croak. "Hold all of my calls for now, Vicky."

"Sure thing, Mr. M.," the intercom chirped back. Vicky had worked here a long time, and Vicky was no dummy. The rags in Metcalf's empire featured photos as well as written stories, and the auditions for a lot of those were conducted right here in Philip's office.

Of course, before now Philip had always been in complete control of what happened in this office. This was a whole new sensation for Philip. Maybe that's why it was turning him on as high as the volume of the boom box music.

As Philip buzzed off, Chucky was coming around the side of the desk. Standing behind Philip's chair, he pulled it away from the desk toward the large plate-glass window behind. Philip tilted his head back to find himself staring into a pert and nubby nipple on a very nicely developed, smooth-skinned chest.

He groaned. This wasn't anything like looking at one of the photos in his magazine. It had been so long since he'd auditioned guys for those photos that he'd forgotten the difference between a photo and the sensation of the guy actually being there. At the feel of Chucky's touch on his arm, Philip looked down and dumbly watched Chucky firmly wrap his forearm against the arm of his chair with one of the red silk scarves, holding his arm bound there. His head swiveled around to see Chucky doing the same to the forearm resting on the other chair arm.

In everything, the surprise and shock of what was happening—as pleasant as it was—kept Chucky one step ahead of him. Philip couldn't think of what he should say or do before Chucky had moved on to something else—something even more provocative than he had done before. And now the "do" was too late if he wanted to regain control. He was firmly bound to his chair.

Chucky came in front of him and moved in close, with Philip's knees between his thighs. The young man was still dancing in place, his torso slowly undulating in the most provocative way. Philip's eyes ran down the enticing line of Chucky's torso to the bulge of the red silk thong, which was all Chucky was now wearing.

"Gah, gah," Philip managed from his nearly paralyzed throat. But that was all he managed to say, fully realizing it was gibberish, before Chucky leaned over him, pulled Philip's head toward his face by pulling on Philip's tie, and having Chucky's minty-flavored mouth capture his.

Philip shuddered. The bulge between Chucky's legs was rubbing against Philip's belly now—but the red thong was gone.

This was real. This wasn't just one of the lame, same-same stories being run in his magazine. Literacy and spelling and word usage didn't mean shit here.

Philip wasn't able to concentrate on the kiss—as arousing as he was finding it—because Chucky was already unbuttoning his shirt and running his hands in to grope Philip's chest and rub and tweak his nipples. And the arousal of this was quickly replaced with the sensation and sound of his belt buckle being undone and his zipper lowered and then of warm hands on his half-engorged and quickly hardening cock. The feel of Chucky's hard cock against Philip's belly made him hyperventilate. And he barely had time to appreciate Chucky's fisting of his shaft when he was gasping and gulping at the feel of a condom being rolled onto his cock and lubricant being slathered on the sheathed shaft.

A strangled "Muffff" sound and the bulging of his eyes as the pale blues of Chucky's bored into them and Chucky worked to get his tongue to the back of Philip's throat were the most reaction Philip could manage—other than the jerking and trembling of his body at every point, as Chucky, still weaving his torso to the beat of the boom box, slowly descended his channel on Philip's cock, rose, descended, rose . . .

Racing through Philip's brain in constant, ear-ringing repetition was just one phrase: "God, this is the best job in the world."

Chucky was right. More of his stories would be bought for the magazines. And Philip knew just who could become his editor to make them readable.