What Friends Do

I'd gone to the kitchen in Jay's apartment to get myself a sparkling water from the fridge—we couldn't drink what we'd really like to drink during the performance season—when his doorbell rang, and he let his landlord in. I just stayed out of sight in the kitchen, because I knew this was going to be unpleasant and I didn't want the landlord, who I'd heard was a real ass, to get the idea that I'd moved in with Jay after Dalton died. Which I hadn't, and I didn't think there was any chance Jay would let me.

And therein was the rub. This was a good two-bedroom apartment in McLean Gardens almost within sight across Wisconsin Avenue of where both Jay and I were principal dancers with the Washington Ballet. It was a ten-minute walk to the theater for Jay. I had to take the bus from a much lower-rent part of Washington, D.C., and had a studio apartment that wasn't anywhere near this nice. Jay had lived with Dalton, who was quite a bit older than Jay was and who had a high-level job in some government agency down near the Mall. They'd been a couple for a few years, although Dalton's employers and friends probably didn't know it.

I did, though. Jay and I had come through the dance schools together and now were both principal dancers with the premier modern ballet company in the capital. We were tight—not go-to-bed tight, of course, because we were both bottoms. And we were such good friends that we didn't begrudge the principal roles the other one got. There was enough for both of us. In fact, we each were leads in the two casts of the current

Petite Mort

ballet by Jiri Kylián that was in production. That's why I came to the kitchen for sparkling water rather than a beer. A male dancer pretty much shows it all on stage. We had to be in perfect trim.

If there was any difference between Jay and me it was that he was long term and consecutive with his bedmates and I was casual one-night, no entangling relationship stands. He preferred them older and regular Joes; I rotated between rich and flamboyant, white sports muscle, and black bulls. I was up for variation, interesting positions, and a bit of rough and Jay was strictly vanilla and romance.

"I'm good for the rent," Jay was saying in the other room. "If you'll just float me for a couple of months. Dalton's estate has to settle, and then I can pay it all. I could do a third of it a month until then. I don't want to move. The location is great, and I don't want to have to move all of this stuff. Just a couple of months, please, before I can get back onto schedule."

"We can maybe come to an arrangement," I heard the landlord, Samuel Weinstein, who had an apartment himself on the ground floor, answer in a low, throaty voice.

I knew what he had in mind. Jay had told me the man had been pressuring him ever since Dalton had died unexpectedly—and maybe off and on before that. He wasn't that much different from Dalton. Forties and nondescript looking. Built well enough if a bit on the heavy side. Good looking but not strikingly so, like I liked them. A steady Joe. But he was pushing it with Jay if he wanted to replace Dalton. He might have a chance, but it was too soon. Jay was the romantic kind in contrast to my acceptance of "whatever feels good" and reality.

"Please, Mr. Weinstein—Sam—I just can't now."

I could see in my imagination, the landlord standing real close to Jay, maybe a hand on Jay's basket, pushing the issue.

"That's too bad," Weinstein said. "I could be a help to you. And I dropped by because I had a hookup for you that would give you rent money for at least this month."

"I don't do that," Jay said.

"Pity. There's a clothes designer coming in from London for a show at the Capitol Hilton. An old friend of mine. It would be just as an escort for him for the evening and then in his bed for the night. He's nothing to sneeze at, and it would be $1,500 for just the one night. Not interested, I can see. Well, think about it."

I could tell he was at the door of the apartment from the lower volume of his voice. Jay had answered him, but I couldn't hear what he said. Knowing Jay, though, and his approach to the lifestyle, I knew he'd passed on his regrets. Then I did hear him.

"But, like I said, it's just a matter of the estate being settled. It won't be long. We were legally married and there aren't any other relatives to contend. And I could do a third until then. Can we do it that way?"

"The rent isn't due for two more weeks," Weinstein answered. "You have time to consider my own proposal—and Christopher Manon isn't coming in until next weekend. So you have time to think about that too."

Christopher Manon, I thought. Not just a clothes designer, but a premier designer and owner of an exclusive line of men's wear. I'd die to be able to wear his clothes.

As I heard the door to the outer hallway close behind Weinstein, I made an instantaneous decision. The apartment had a service stairwell that opened from the kitchen. I launched myself into the stairwell and down the three flights of stairs, around the side of the building, and made it back into the front hall as Weinstein was at the door to his apartment.

"I was upstairs and heard what you said to Jay Gold, Mr. Weinstein. I'm Cole Stevens, a friend of Jay's."

"Another one of those dancers over at the ballet?" he said, looking me up and down. I could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he liked what he saw. I was vain enough to know that he would. Jay and I were virtual twins in everything but some of our attitudes. Which might be helpful in this case.

"Yeah, well, then you know Jay Gold is in trouble with the rent," he said. "And I'm a candy man, but not without stipulations. If you're a good friend of his, you might help him see reality."

"I'm a good friend of his, Mr. Weinstein. And I want to see him be able to keep the apartment. I'd be willing to help in any way I can. And I don't have any of the reservations he has on how to get that done. Maybe rather than convince him of anything, I could show you how much a friend of his I am."

He gave me another hard look, and then his face went into a broad-smile expression. "You want to come into my apartment? Maybe see my etchings?"

"Yes, I'd like that." We both knew what I had signaled and what his response meant.

He fucked me on the foot of his bed missionary style, and I gave him a good time, with us sucking each other off in a 69 position before I opened my legs to him, begged him to cock me, and told him what he wanted to hear about how good he was, how big his cock was, how much I was enjoying him plowing me. And, as a matter of fact, he wasn't half bad, especially if I didn't zero in on the face; he'd kept his body in reasonable shape and he'd had a shower.

Afterward, over a beer for him and ice water for me at his kitchen table, before he bent me over that and took me from the rear again, we set up appointments for two more sessions. This was to cover the shortfall in Jay's rent for the coming month. Then I maneuvered him into asking me to take the one-night gig with Christopher Manon the next Saturday night.

"I know you offered it to Jay, but there's not that much difference between us physically. And there's a whole lot of difference between how we'll take casual cock. You've seen what I can do now. Do you think your friend will find a timid and not fully willing Jay more fun to fuck than me?"

"Point taken," Weinstein said with a smile and an intimate search with the hand, which I let him know was appreciated. It wasn't fully appreciated, of course, but the things we do for friends. I planned to get full appreciation out of Christopher Manon, though.

I'd have to arrange for Jay to take my place in

Petite Mort

that night without telling him why I needed the night off, but that's why we had two casts—so that they could cover for each other, as needed. The ballet director liked to pair Jay and me in roles, not only because we were nearly twins in build and appearance, but also because we were so amenable to covering for each other—and we didn't put our claws out and try to belittle the other one for ascendance in the role. I wouldn't tell Jay why I needed the night off, and I'd use the money from the Manon escort service to cover another month of Jay's rent.

I got Weinstein to agree to say he'd take the one-third rent offer up front from Jay for the next five months. That way Jay would think we was getting what he offered, no strings attached, and, when Jay paid the back rent portion, Weinstein would come out ahead financially—although when the time came maybe I'd negotiate Weinstein down from that as well.

The cost would be out of my hide, but this was what friends were for, I knew Jay wouldn't agree to it if he knew what the real deal was, and I didn't mind the casual sex all that much.

Weinstein's cock certainly wasn't a particularly difficult chore to take, and from what I remembered of Christopher Manon's suave looks in the press photos I'd seen, he'd be my type. I didn't often get paid when a guy who aroused me took me to dinner and spiked me afterward.

* * * *

My adventure with Manon started on Saturday morning, when his driver picked me up at Weinstein's apartment, where I'd writhed half the night away with Weinstein doing pushups on my body. Where that might tire out most guys, the night with my legs open to Weinstein only had me keyed up—and interested in moving up in partners. Weinstein was OK, but he was no Adonis. It was only up from there.

Manon's limo driver, Ropo, on the other hand, was just what my appetite was whetted for. He was a six-foot-four, tank of a big black bull, with a bald head and the face of a prize-fighter thug. He was ugly as sin in the face but divine in muscular, athletic body elsewhere. He was dressed in the black livery of a hired limousine driver, which fit him like a glove.

As I came down the steps of the apartment house and slid into the cavernous back of the limo that was to take me to a spa for grooming for the night's festivities, I felt both randy and playful and brushed my hand along the bulge of his crotch as he opened the limo door for me and I slid by and into the back of the limousine. I smiled at him to let him know that hadn't been an accident and felt a little lurch of my own as he jerked and his eyes slitted at the passing attention.

He poked his head into the car to make sure I knew where we were going. "I'm drivin' you to Mr. Manon's store for a tuxedo fitting for t'night first. Then to the Bethesda spa for treatments for a workover. Back to the store after lunch for the tux. Pickin' up Mr. Manon early evening for the dinner at the Hilton."

"Sounds good. Doesn't seem to fill the day, though," I answered, with a saucy smile. "We'll have to see what we can do to fill in the extra time."

"I's don't know about there bein' extra time," Ropo answered. I could see in his face, though, that he was thinking about that extra time himself. He had a funny accent. I couldn't place it but it didn't seem to be from D.C. There almost was a bit of British in it—but something more guttural, primitive than that.

"You do know, don't you, Ropo, that I'm Mr. Manon's date for the evening and night—that he's going to fuck me? That I let men fuck me? You might be interested to know that I'm partial to big black bulls and that I can't get enough of it. You, for instance. If you swing that way, I wouldn't mind being fucked by you."

"Wouldn't know anything about that, Mr. Stevens," he said. He'd pulled his head out of the back of the car, but his voice sounded strained. "Best get you to the clothes shop now."

I was in seventh heaven at the Christopher Manon downtown store, where instructions had been left for me to be given not only a tux but all of the sexy underwear, shoes, and socks that went with it plus a change of casual clothes and a pair of silky sleeping shorts.

"Mr. Manon is fanatical about style," the fitter offered, "and the men around him must be dressed to the nines—in Christopher Manon clothes."

That was quite all right with me. I did wonder what the man was thinking when he was outfitting me for the slinky sleepy shorts, though.

I made a point of trying it all on in full sight of Ropo, who was standing like a good soldier off to the side and, I guess, doing bodyguard duty. I made sure to get a good look at his crotch from time to time, and yes, I could tell he was hard. So, he was a player.

When I was finished there and we were walking out to the car, he stopped me with a big mitt latching onto my elbow. He turned me and said, "I called and had the spa appointment changed to the afternoon. If you were serious—"

"Is there someplace you can take me where we can fuck?"

There was. The store had a garage behind it for the store employees and to serve the apartments above. Ropo told me that the two-story penthouse apartment was reserved for Christopher Manon when he came to town. It's where we would be returning tonight. The space for the limo was way in back in the shadows, with blank cinderblock wall on three sides. The limo itself had tinted windows. The only clue that anything was going on in the limo was if it was being rocked on its springs.

And, every part of Ropo's body being as magnificent as I supposed, the limo did indeed get rocked hard on its springs.

There were miles of legroom in the back of the limo and a plush seat a passenger could be swallowed up in. There were clothes strewn all over the floor in the back, as, now fully into the tryst, Ropo quickly pawed me naked and I managed to strip him of his shoes, trousers, and briefs—all Christopher Manon labeled, I noted—before kneeling between his spread legs and starting to work his cock and balls with my mouth. I had unbuttoned his jacket to find he was bare underneath and that his chest was bulging with muscles and huge nipples, standing at attention.

To assure him I was no novice, I showed him my trick of rolling a Trojan Magnum on his stiff rod with my mouth. This put him over the edge and ended the foreplay before I was really ready to receive the cock. But the pain and effort of getting it inside was half the pain-pleasure of being fucked by a big black bull. The other half was experiencing the depth he could reach, how vigorously—and long long—he could pump—and how much cum he could produce when he finally had me pinned under him, shot off all over my face, and then made me clean him with my mouth.

He sat back in the middle of the seat while, initially, I sat on his cock, facing him and saddled in his lap, my arms around his neck and kissing him on the mouth with no care that his mug was ugly when the rest of his body was so beautiful. He allowed me to control the rising and falling until we both knew I was fully open to him. And then he took over, pulling my legs up into the seat until they were bent at the knees, with my toes buried in where the seat back met the seat cushion.

"Crouch up," he growled, and when I pulled my buttocks up, maintaining my balance with my feet wedged into the seat crack and my arms around his neck, he took over the pumping, thrusting up, ever faster and deeper into me with his monster cock.

He had the stamina to go on forever. I was the one who's leg muscles gave out first. I also was the one who had come first, up his bare belly. When my legs gave out and I sank to the quick on his cock, he changed my position, pushing my back down toward the floor, supported by his legs, and my legs up his torso, the toes just touching the ceiling of the limo. Grabbing my waist in both sides, he pulled my ass channel on and off his cock, while I groaned and moaned, and he whispered how much he liked being inside me.

We finished with me pinned down by him, stretched along the backseat, and him poised over me, holding and stroking his cock until he'd come in prodigious spouts on my face and then had me clean the cock with my mouth again. I was beginning to wonder if I could apply for a staff job doing this for him.

The spa visit was anticlimactic after that fucking, with every inch of me being massaged and pampered. I left wondering why they'd even bothered to put a clear coat on my nails and also wondering if the ballet makeup director would let me keep the brighter blond highlights they'd put in my washed, cut, and styled hair. They'd even trimmed my bush and shaved the down off my chest. My pits were bare. I, apparently, only now was worthy of being dined, entertained, and fucked by Christopher Manon.

Ropo delivered me to Christopher Manon's penthouse apartment after we'd picked up my clothes at the store downstairs, saying I could dress—I'd already been showered, enemaed, and toweled dry at the spa—and wait there for Manon to return home and dress himself. We'd leave for the evening's events from here, in a limo driven by Ropo.

"Do we have time for another—?" I asked at the apartment door.

"I don't know when Mr. Manon will be back. And he'll probably call me to be driven back here, and I'll have to be ready to do that immediately."

"Well, don't worry," I said. "I won't tell Mr. Manon what we did."

"He won't care. In fact, he asked me to give him a report if I had you before he did."

I blushed and meekly entered the apartment. I had nothing in sophistication over these men. But then I turned and started to ask him another question. He anticipated it and cut me off, though.

"I've already tweeted him that he will have a fine evening and night," Ropo said. "You should know that we share. And, oh, by the way, I'd suggest the sleeping shorts for now and changing into the tux later when Mr. Manon tells you you can—unless you hadn't figured out why you were given an enema at the spa." And then, with a rare grin running across a customarily blank and guarded face, he turned, and went down the stairs, the athlete in him scorning the elevator.

I was trembling and my butt was twitching. By "share" did he mean they doubled another guy? I'd done that before, but I'd had no idea that was a possibility now. All of a sudden I felt like I might be fully earning that $1,500 I was being paid. Well, I was being paid more than that if I didn't have to return the clothes I'd been outfitted for downstairs.

Then my thoughts went to Jay. I had come on to Ropo, but what if I hadn't? What if he'd taken his slice anyway? How would Jay have reacted to that? I could enjoy it, but I wasn't Jay. Had I maybe done an even bigger favor for my friend by stepping in for him than I'd thought? Did it matter whether I enjoyed this kind of sex or not, or did it matter more that Jay was being saved from something he wasn't in tune with?

* * * *

I entered the apartment on the top floor, which seemed to be one large room, with all glass walls toward the street and sides of the building. And there were deep terraces beyond the glass walls at the sides. Areas were delineated by furnishings as living room, dining area, and kitchen, but no walls between them. There was a kitchen bar between the appliances and the dining area. It took me a minute to find the winding staircase that went down to the level under this one. The place was deserted.

The staircase took me down to the bedroom level, which contained more living space than the upper level. I found four bedrooms, each with a bath, and a study or office. There were suitcases and clothes stacked around in two of the bedrooms. The master bedroom obviously was Manon's. But the other one? Ropo's?

Had Ropo come from London with Manon? that would explain the strange accent. Maybe he was from London too—but obviously not native British. Maybe Nigerian? He wasn't chocolate brown like blacks I knew in the D.C. area. He was jet black. So, maybe African by way of London. A lot of D.C. blacks I fucked had jet black cocks, but lighter-colored bodies. With Ropo, it was all black cock color—and a very memorable cock, if I might say—like a thick sausage, uncut.