I hadn't thought there was very much to running a movie projector until my housemate Kyle got a job at the local theater. He worked in a brand-new complex with 18 screens and stadium seating. The building wasn't even completed on opening day, and when the first rains of fall pattered on the unfinished roof, Kyle said he spent his time positioning buckets to catch all the water.
I went with Kyle to work one day and sat with him in the projection booth, where we spied silent, flickering screens from behind soundproof glass. Each film arrived at the theater in about five or seven reels, and it was Kyle's job to piece those sections together into the solid, seamless movie that entertained the viewers.
"How long does that usually take?" I asked.
"A good projectionist can do it in about an hour and a half," he said, "but since I'm still learning, it takes me about two hours."
With no sound, Kyle said he usually flicks on the theater's closed radio station that the ushers use to communicate. I heard it gargling out gibberish in the corner, but Kyle must have understood it.
He sat up and scooted his chair over to the glass overlooking one of the theaters.
"Check it out, Sean," he said, pointing. "That couple down there is making out."
I could barely see anything in the dark, but I did see the faint silhouette of two figures locked together at their mouths. They seemed to be going at it, too, their shapes merging together and then separating as they came up for air. I wished I could hear them, or at least the people near them scoffing at their actions.
"I wonder if they're good looking," Kyle said.
Finally, two ushers arrived and basted the couple in pale, yellow streaks coming from their flashlights. Kyle and I were expecting two teenagers, maybe a cheerleader and her football player boyfriend wrapped in his letter jacket.
But the light instead shined on two men in their early 20s, the same age as Kyle and me. One had short, tousled hair that curled in a mat upon his head, the other had a sharp crew cut, and both had their hands up each other's shirts.
Kyle's first reaction was to laugh.
"That's pretty hot," he said.
I had shared similar moments of making out with Kyle back home, in each of our beds. We had gone a lot further, too, and the thought that Kyle might be turned on by these two young men our age kissing in the theater made my cock twitch.
"The one on the right is cute, but I probably wouldn't fuck the one on the left," I said.
Kyle laughed again, harder this time. He belted out an airy guffaw, which seemed to echo within the room. I tried to shush him, but he kept at it.
"It's soundproof glass, they can't hear anything," he said, collecting himself. "And besides, you'd fuck any guy, anywhere, Sean."
I was about to protest, but I nodded instead.
"Maybe you're right," I said. "I'd fuck someone in a theater, if I could get away with it."
"I bet you'd even fuck me right here, in this booth," he said.
"Don't wish for something you don't want," I joked.
He didn't answer right away. Instead he kept a soft smirk plastered across his face, his full lips glowing red in the dull light of the flickering film. His smooth face looked almost ghostly white in the gray shine from the screen, and his usually blue eyes shimmered cloudy silver, like an overcast sky.
The light from the film caught his body along with his face. It highlighted the lean muscles rippling under his taut uniform. His red polo shirt dipped between his pectoral muscles and the short-sleeve cuffs cupped his biceps above elbow. My eyes followed the shirt between his shoulder blades down his back muscles to his waist where a belt cinched his torso into a V before allowing his lean ass to jut out and taper into strong thighs.
His hand reached up and played with his short brown hair, twirling the straight strands with his fingers. I watched as the veins in his forearm pulsed with each contraction of his muscle.
Suddenly, he turned to me.
"Maybe I do wish for it," he said.
I stood up from my chair and let him take a look at me. My t-shirt was a bit loose, covering my smooth chest and stomach. My jeans, however, squeezed my hips and held tight between my legs, outlining my hardening package.
I stepped forward and pressed my lips down to Kyle's. He reached up and cupped my clean-shaven face with his hands. I closed my deep, blue eyes and let his other hand run through my dirty blond hair. My dick was straining against my fly, and I moaned slightly into Kyle's mouth.
He took that a signal, and he let my tongue inside to explore his teeth and the insides of his cheeks. He returned the favor and gave me a taste of his warm tongue smearing the inside of my mouth.
