Peekaboo
"Who's that?" I asked. The laugh had made me look beyond Linda's desk, beyond the work floor, to the glass-walled office in the corner. We were on the twenty-third floor, the fourth of the ten floors the John Hoffman Financial Services Company had in the Manhattan building. It was a deep-throated, self-confident, "This is my realm" laugh. I'd been flirting with Linda, the receptionist for the floor, when I heard the laugh. I always flirted with the receptionists during my mail delivery rounds at my morning job. It was good for camouflage purposes.
"That's himself, Colby," Linda answered. "Ralph is retiring. He has his own office. The brass show up to hand over the watch and see an employee off when someone in their own corner office retires." Linda was giving me that special smile. She was just another of the young women--and men--in the office who would be happy to have a blond, twenty-year-old song and dance student in the Big Apple, who was working here part time to help make his way, cover them. I'd do it for some of the young men I'd met here--and, for money, for some of the older ones. But I turned to women like Linda, who was perfectly beautiful, mind you, only as camouflage at parties where I needed to impress a straight crowd and I wouldn't fuck them after the party. My claim to fame was that I always managed to keep them as friends and confidantes even when I didn't let the relationship to go further. Some of them, I'm sure, figured it out and just liked me enough for it not to tick them off.
"Himself?" I asked, assessing the man standing in a gaggle of expensive suits, mostly men, but a few women, in what must be Ralph's soon-to-be-vacated office. My assessment didn't come up with anything negative other than arrogance, and I could take arrogance from a man who had every reason to be so. He was tall, nearly six-and-a-half feet, lean, with a ram-rod-straight back. He looked quite fit for someone appearing to be in his very late forties or mid-fifties. He was movie star handsome, with rugged features and a mane of wavy black hair, graying at the temples. His demeanor was all confidence and command. He could easily win clients for this financial services company just by smiling into the camera for a TV commercial for the firm.
As if he knew someone standing two glass walls away from him with a working floor of low-walled cubicles between them was assessing him, he turned a bit and let his eyes sweep the room before returning to concentrating on the departing Ralph. His gaze paused briefly at me--or was it the beautiful Linda--before sweeping on. Peekaboo, I see you.
"Himself, as in Josh Hoffman himself," Linda said. "Look busy. Hand me some mail. Pretend you're telling me something about the special handling requirements of one of the envelopes." I complied.
I doubted it was me he paused at, a lowly twenty-year-old morning-duty-only mail clerk with no ambitions at rising at Josh Hoffman Financial Services. I planned to be an actor. All of my effort was going into my studies to make that pan out. All of my sacrifices--which were great, went far beyond walking behind a mail cart in ten floors of a mid-Manhattan office building.
The retirement thrill was over and the corporate crowd, moving as one herd, Himself in the center of the gaggle, the center of everyone's attention, moved past us and to the elevators. Did Josh Hoffman turn his gaze toward Linda and me as he passed? Did he do a "peekaboo, I see you?" No, I don't think so.
The flurry packed into elevators and ascended to corporate heaven, I turned the cart to moving down the aisle between cubicles and distributing my treasures.
"Colby," Linda said, as I pushed off. "Call me." I could hear the ache in her voice. She was a nice girl. The next straight party I went to I'd surely ask her if she wanted to go. There would be no fuck afterward, though. And that, I'm sure would be the last time she turned her moon eyes at me. She'd understand.
"Surely will, Doll," I said, moving on.
* * * *
I had to wear a company uniform to distribute the mail at Josh Hoffman Financial Services. I didn't mind. I looked good in the uniform, it saved me from having to buy office-appropriate duds of my own, and, when I was in the uniform, I could treat the lowly job as just an acting role I was in. It gave me valuable "get into and stay in character" practice. I could practice being invisible and subservient to the suits.
There was an employee's locker room in the bowels of the office where I changed. Today, rather than changing into my street clothes to go to class, I changed into gym clothes. I didn't have any classes this day. I had an assignment with my other job--the other job that paid me far more than Josh Hoffman Financial Services did--but the job that took more out of me too. It was a job that allowed me to roleplay in an entirely different way.
I was to meet the man, Warren, the escort service had said, at a gym five blocks away from the building Josh Hoffman's was in. I'd be on the approved check-in list under my escort service's name, Clint James. I was sort of sorry the escort service had that name for me. I thought it would be a good stage name, but now I never could use it for that.
This Warren had asked for a guy who was fit and flexible. Blond, good looking, and athletic. I'd been a gymnast and was studying to be a Broadway show dancer, which I'd occasionally been able to do--and, hopefully, moving to center stage as an actor sooner rather than later--so I'd worked hard to remain in shape and limber into my twenties. I assumed that having the meet at a gym meant the guy would be fit himself, and that was true, although he turned out to be a bit older than I had thought he'd be.
The gym I was directed to was a serious one, providing gymnastic equipment as well as fitness machines. The man I met, calling himself Shep, also looked to be a serious gym rat. He was very fit, maybe in his early forties--barrel chested, tapering down to a narrow waist and hips, the taut material of his deep-arm and chest cut athletic T-shirt showing the cut six pack. His thighs and calves were like tree trunks; his biceps bulging. He was bald and a bit thuggish looking--not ugly, but with a cut scar from an earlobe down to the corner of his mouth. He looked to be hairless, including in his pits, but he had a pec tattoo on the left side, swirls of black, which extended down his left arm to his wrist. His athletic shorts were tight on his body, and although he didn't bulge, I could see that he had a PA ring in his bulb. That gave me a little shudder.
He didn't tell me much about himself, including how he'd hooked up with the escort service. He mentioned something about Tulsa, Oklahoma, and oil, and being in New York City on business. He had to be wealthy to afford the escort services fees.
I'd been told he wanted a young, fit, good-looking blond with gymnastics experience. He tested the experience part, bypassing the fitness equipment and spotting me on the parallel bars and the rings. His spotting included feeling me up while I was showing him that I knew how to perform the gymnast skills. He must have been satisfied, because he took me from there to an early dinner at a moderately expensive steak house. He changed in the gym locker room--slowly, watching my expression of what was revealed as he stripped. Being in character, I gave him the gasps of appreciation he obviously was looking for. He insisted I strip and change in front of him so we could get a good look at each other. He looked quite good undressed. I knew that I did too. I was dressed city casual. He wore jeans, a cowboy shirt, and fancy Western boots.
At the restaurant I ordered the most expensive cut, but a small portion of it, with a salad and no carbs, which seemed to impress him. He felt me up under the table to the panting level while he watched me eat. I never could tell until we reached this point if the guy just wanted to pretend or was a player. Shep wasn't pretending. He was going to fuck me.
