Chapter 7
David was just thinking about heading to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich, when he heard the front door open. Footsteps thudded down the hallway, and then a clearly excited Mark appeared in the doorway of his study with shining eyes and a huge grin on his face. David felt his stomach lurch when he saw that expression - it looked like Mark had succeeded in his goal to become an actor. Was he going to leave? Move out after he’d repaid David the money he owed him? He reminded himself sharply that this was a good thing, and he had no right to wish that Mark could have stayed longer.
“Hi,” he said aloud, trying not to let anything of what he was thinking show in his voice. “How’d your audition go?”
“Great!” Mark cried, practically jigging in place.
“Really? You got the job? That’s wonderful,” David said, his heart sinking. He was glad that his voice sounded pleased and not despondent.
Mark shook his head. “Not the one I was auditioning for,” he crowed. “I got another one instead!”
David blinked. “What? How did that happen?”
“Let me tell you,” Mark said, leaning against the doorjamb. He began to tell his story from the beginning, alternately shocking, horrifying, and then reassuring David as he listened. “I can’t believe that he tried to…make you…” he trailed off, totally disgusted.
Mark nodded. “I know. But it helped me to say ‘no’ to him to remember that I still had a guaranteed job with you, even if he made sure that I couldn’t ever get another acting job. Sure it’s only for a year, but I could have looked around and decided what I wanted to do during that time. But instead, I’ve got a job on a TV series! Sure it’s only a small part; I won’t be working more than maybe fifteen or twenty hours a week at most. But it’s still a job, and it might lead to something even better! And I can still be your dogsbody, too, since I won’t be gone for more than five or six hours a day for maybe three or four days a week. If I make meals in a crock pot on those days, I can still come home and serve you dinner. That okay with you?”
“It’s great,” he replied honestly, feeling relieved that Mark wasn’t going to desert him completely. “I’m glad that you got a job,” he repeated, really meaning it this time.
“Yeah, I can pay you back for the clothes you bought me, and still have some spending money left over,” Mark said happily. “If I had any money right now, I’d take us out to dinner to celebrate,” he added wistfully.
David smiled and closed out the document he’d been typing on. “We’ll go anyway,” he said, pushing to his feet. “I’m buying.”
Mark glowered at him. “I don’t want you to spend any more of your money on me,” he complained.
“But this is a celebration. I’d spend money on members of my family if something good happened to them, and we wanted to celebrate,” the writer pointed out reasonably as he closed his laptop. “And you’re pretty much family in a roundabout sort of way - I’ve always seen Sid as more of an uncle than an agent, which would make you an honorary cousin. Right?”
Mark stared at him, then laughed. His eyes crinkled up at the corners in a decidedly cute way, David noticed. “That’s torturous logic at best,” he replied genially, “But what the hell. I don’t want to cook tonight, and I really do have something amazing to celebrate. You’re on. Just let me go change my clothes…”
“I have to change my clothes, too. I’ll meet you in the front hall in half-an-hour,” David told him.
“Okay. It’s a date,” Mark disappeared from the doorway as swiftly as he’d appeared, leaving David feeling a little breathless over the phrase ‘it’s a date’. Of course it really wasn’t, but he so wished that it actually was a date…
Later, they sat at a table in an expensive French restaurant, while Mark dubiously eyed the fancily-dressed waiters and the obviously moneyed clientele. His grey eyes swiveled back to David’s face. “Before you say anything, I love to come here to celebrate special occasions,” the writer said as he opened his menu. “I brought my sister here when she told me she was engaged, and I treated myself when my fourth book was on the New York Times Bestseller list for almost three months. Only the best when it’s good news,” he went on with a grin. “It’s not like I can’t afford it, you know. Your uncle is a canny agent, and I also have a nicely developing investment portfolio looked after by an extremely smart broker. Honestly, I could live in a small mansion if I wanted to…I just don’t. I’d only rattle around in a large place like a single pea in a huge pod.”
“Okay, Mr. Rolling-in-Dough, I believe you,” Mark said, smiling wryly. “So what do you recommend?”
“Well, I like the filet mignon and the cotes de veau; but you might prefer something else. If you have any problems reading the menu, just ask me. I can translate for you.”
“You speak French? I’m impressed,” Mark said as he studied his menu.
“Well, it’s a great way to impress guys, speaking a foreign language,” David remarked with a grin.
“I can see that it would be. And they don’t call French the ‘language of love’ for nothing.”
“I think they should really call it the ‘language of getting people to strip naked and do you’,” the writer teased softly, making Mark laugh. David felt warmth in the pit of his stomach at having made Mark laugh, and silently vowed to do so as often as he possibly could over the next year.
“I think I’m in the mood for chicken,” Mark said musingly. “I know I should want a more exotic meat at a place like this…”
“No, they have a wonderful coq a vin that you’ll like,” David told him. “That’s chicken in wine sauce, in English. Or they have a herbed chicken in cream sauce that’s excellent.”
“The second one sounds great. I’m not a big fan of wine. Kosher wine is kind of…odd tasting, and mom never let us drink regular wine until we were old enough to drink. So I never really got used to it.”
“All right. I’ll order for us,” David said. “Do you just want to stick to water, since you don’t care for wine?”
“Sure. It’s not like I can order a Coke here,” Mark said with an impish grin.
David chuckled. “No, you can’t. I think they’d all have fits of apoplexy if you did. Still, it’d be funny to watch…”
“True. But since you really like to come here, we don’t want to make them mad at you,” Mark said. “Water’s fine.”
Their waiter came to the table, and he ordered for both of them. He got only a glass of wine for himself, since Mark didn’t want any. Mark was nibbling on a breadstick, a sight which did bad things to certain parts of David’s anatomy. He looked away from those pink lips taking in that long breadstick with a shudder, concentrating instead of the older couple sitting nearby. They helped his libido to calm down, and he took a deep breath and sipped at the glass of wine that the waiter had brought him.
Except for his unruly libido, they had a great evening. The food was excellent, and they talked about everything under the sun. David discovered that Mark and he shared a passion for Japanese anime, and they compared ones that they’d watched, and discussed the merits of both subbing and dubbing at length. Mark told him a little about the television show that he’d have as bit part in, and about the character that he’d be playing. When they finally trailed into the house after nine, both were pleasantly full and feeling mellow.
“Thanks for dinner, David. I really enjoyed it,” Mark said as they entered the living room.
“I did too.” the writer agreed. “We should do it again sometime.”
“I’d like that. But next time, I pay,” Mark replied firmly. Anyway, I’m going to go and take a bath and just relax. Unless you need me to do something?” he added as he paused in his tracks.
“No, I don’t. I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” David said with a smile.
“Yeah. Goodnight, David. Sleep well,” Mark walked away toward his room, and David sat down in his favorite armchair and reached for the remote for the TV. He was definitely going to look for something to take his mind off of images of a wet, naked Mark lounging in his bathtub.
David had a restless night, not sleeping well. He tossed and turned, and had broken dreams about Mark that left him covered in sweat and his body throbbing, when he woke up from yet another one of them. He groaned, sitting up, glad that it was morning. Stumbling out of bed, he had a long, hot shower and a brisk jerk-off to help calm his body down. Then he wandered into the kitchen, seeing that Mark wasn’t up yet. No actor making breakfast at the stove…he scowled and went to get a glass to pour some orange juice into. Carrying the glass, he decided to go and sit out by the pool for a bit until he woke up enough to actually concentrate on his writing.
He padded barefoot down the hallway and out the back door, walking along the concrete apron. He was startled to hear a splashing sound, and it took him a second to realize that someone was swimming in his pool. And there could be only one person…oh shit…
His eyes were riveted on the pool, and he couldn’t look away as a lithe, pale, leanly-muscular body clad only in a pair of skin-tight Speedos pulled itself out of the water, and Mark straightened up. He shook his head to make droplets of water fly from his dark hair, which was a plastered to his head. He turned around, heading toward the table and the towel draped over one of the chairs. David tried hard to swallow past the lump in his throat when he saw the dark-pink nipples hardened from the cool water, and the water beading on all of that pale skin. He couldn’t help himself; his eyes moved down and trained on the bulge under the navy-blue fabric of the Speedos. He was frozen in place, with a raging erection under his bathrobe, while helplessly ogling at and drooling over his young dogsbody.
Much to his horror and chagrin, Mark’s head turned as though he’d heard something. He stopped in his tracks, and they just stood there looking at each other. David felt mortified and embarrassed at having been caught like this. He opened his mouth to apologize before retreating, but Mark called out to him: “Good morning, David. Do you want to take a swim?”
He fought to speak through his Sahara Desert-dry mouth. “No, I just came out here to get some fresh air and try to wake up,” he croaked.
“Okay,” Mark said, not giving any indication that he’d seen the writer ogling him. “You don’t mind if I finish my swim, do you?”
“No,” David said aloud, while thinking: ‘Not at all. Dear God, not at all!’
Mark nodded and walked lithely to the diving board, stepping up onto it. As David watched, still unable to look away, he padded to the end of it and dove smoothly into the water. He was beautiful, the writer thought in helpless longing and lust. Absolutely beautiful.
In the water, Mark broke the surface and gulped in a deep breath of air. He treaded water lazily, a small, evil smile on his face. He’d accurately read the expression on David’s face when he’d seen the writer standing there watching him, and he knew that it was very bad of him to torment his employer like this. But he figured that this was the best way to get past the writer’s resistance to their relationship, which Mark shrewdly knew was going to happen sooner or later anyway. Better it be sooner; he’d really like to get laid, as soon as possible. Especially with a great guy like David, who he was sure would be a lover who was both tender and sexy at the same time. With that in mind…he dove under the water slowly, making sure that his Speedo-clad ass was clearly visible. Maybe he was being mean, but it was all for a good cause…
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David was just thinking about heading to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich, when he heard the front door open. Footsteps thudded down the hallway, and then a clearly excited Mark appeared in the doorway of his study with shining eyes and a huge grin on his face. David felt his stomach lurch when he saw that expression - it looked like Mark had succeeded in his goal to become an actor. Was he going to leave? Move out after he’d repaid David the money he owed him? He reminded himself sharply that this was a good thing, and he had no right to wish that Mark could have stayed longer.
“Hi,” he said aloud, trying not to let anything of what he was thinking show in his voice. “How’d your audition go?”
“Great!” Mark cried, practically jigging in place.
“Really? You got the job? That’s wonderful,” David said, his heart sinking. He was glad that his voice sounded pleased and not despondent.
Mark shook his head. “Not the one I was auditioning for,” he crowed. “I got another one instead!”
David blinked. “What? How did that happen?”
“Let me tell you,” Mark said, leaning against the doorjamb. He began to tell his story from the beginning, alternately shocking, horrifying, and then reassuring David as he listened. “I can’t believe that he tried to…make you…” he trailed off, totally disgusted.
Mark nodded. “I know. But it helped me to say ‘no’ to him to remember that I still had a guaranteed job with you, even if he made sure that I couldn’t ever get another acting job. Sure it’s only for a year, but I could have looked around and decided what I wanted to do during that time. But instead, I’ve got a job on a TV series! Sure it’s only a small part; I won’t be working more than maybe fifteen or twenty hours a week at most. But it’s still a job, and it might lead to something even better! And I can still be your dogsbody, too, since I won’t be gone for more than five or six hours a day for maybe three or four days a week. If I make meals in a crock pot on those days, I can still come home and serve you dinner. That okay with you?”
“It’s great,” he replied honestly, feeling relieved that Mark wasn’t going to desert him completely. “I’m glad that you got a job,” he repeated, really meaning it this time.
“Yeah, I can pay you back for the clothes you bought me, and still have some spending money left over,” Mark said happily. “If I had any money right now, I’d take us out to dinner to celebrate,” he added wistfully.
David smiled and closed out the document he’d been typing on. “We’ll go anyway,” he said, pushing to his feet. “I’m buying.”
Mark glowered at him. “I don’t want you to spend any more of your money on me,” he complained.
“But this is a celebration. I’d spend money on members of my family if something good happened to them, and we wanted to celebrate,” the writer pointed out reasonably as he closed his laptop. “And you’re pretty much family in a roundabout sort of way - I’ve always seen Sid as more of an uncle than an agent, which would make you an honorary cousin. Right?”
Mark stared at him, then laughed. His eyes crinkled up at the corners in a decidedly cute way, David noticed. “That’s torturous logic at best,” he replied genially, “But what the hell. I don’t want to cook tonight, and I really do have something amazing to celebrate. You’re on. Just let me go change my clothes…”
“I have to change my clothes, too. I’ll meet you in the front hall in half-an-hour,” David told him.
“Okay. It’s a date,” Mark disappeared from the doorway as swiftly as he’d appeared, leaving David feeling a little breathless over the phrase ‘it’s a date’. Of course it really wasn’t, but he so wished that it actually was a date…
Later, they sat at a table in an expensive French restaurant, while Mark dubiously eyed the fancily-dressed waiters and the obviously moneyed clientele. His grey eyes swiveled back to David’s face. “Before you say anything, I love to come here to celebrate special occasions,” the writer said as he opened his menu. “I brought my sister here when she told me she was engaged, and I treated myself when my fourth book was on the New York Times Bestseller list for almost three months. Only the best when it’s good news,” he went on with a grin. “It’s not like I can’t afford it, you know. Your uncle is a canny agent, and I also have a nicely developing investment portfolio looked after by an extremely smart broker. Honestly, I could live in a small mansion if I wanted to…I just don’t. I’d only rattle around in a large place like a single pea in a huge pod.”
“Okay, Mr. Rolling-in-Dough, I believe you,” Mark said, smiling wryly. “So what do you recommend?”
“Well, I like the filet mignon and the cotes de veau; but you might prefer something else. If you have any problems reading the menu, just ask me. I can translate for you.”
“You speak French? I’m impressed,” Mark said as he studied his menu.
“Well, it’s a great way to impress guys, speaking a foreign language,” David remarked with a grin.
“I can see that it would be. And they don’t call French the ‘language of love’ for nothing.”
“I think they should really call it the ‘language of getting people to strip naked and do you’,” the writer teased softly, making Mark laugh. David felt warmth in the pit of his stomach at having made Mark laugh, and silently vowed to do so as often as he possibly could over the next year.
“I think I’m in the mood for chicken,” Mark said musingly. “I know I should want a more exotic meat at a place like this…”
“No, they have a wonderful coq a vin that you’ll like,” David told him. “That’s chicken in wine sauce, in English. Or they have a herbed chicken in cream sauce that’s excellent.”
“The second one sounds great. I’m not a big fan of wine. Kosher wine is kind of…odd tasting, and mom never let us drink regular wine until we were old enough to drink. So I never really got used to it.”
“All right. I’ll order for us,” David said. “Do you just want to stick to water, since you don’t care for wine?”
“Sure. It’s not like I can order a Coke here,” Mark said with an impish grin.
David chuckled. “No, you can’t. I think they’d all have fits of apoplexy if you did. Still, it’d be funny to watch…”
“True. But since you really like to come here, we don’t want to make them mad at you,” Mark said. “Water’s fine.”
Their waiter came to the table, and he ordered for both of them. He got only a glass of wine for himself, since Mark didn’t want any. Mark was nibbling on a breadstick, a sight which did bad things to certain parts of David’s anatomy. He looked away from those pink lips taking in that long breadstick with a shudder, concentrating instead of the older couple sitting nearby. They helped his libido to calm down, and he took a deep breath and sipped at the glass of wine that the waiter had brought him.
Except for his unruly libido, they had a great evening. The food was excellent, and they talked about everything under the sun. David discovered that Mark and he shared a passion for Japanese anime, and they compared ones that they’d watched, and discussed the merits of both subbing and dubbing at length. Mark told him a little about the television show that he’d have as bit part in, and about the character that he’d be playing. When they finally trailed into the house after nine, both were pleasantly full and feeling mellow.
“Thanks for dinner, David. I really enjoyed it,” Mark said as they entered the living room.
“I did too.” the writer agreed. “We should do it again sometime.”
“I’d like that. But next time, I pay,” Mark replied firmly. Anyway, I’m going to go and take a bath and just relax. Unless you need me to do something?” he added as he paused in his tracks.
“No, I don’t. I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” David said with a smile.
“Yeah. Goodnight, David. Sleep well,” Mark walked away toward his room, and David sat down in his favorite armchair and reached for the remote for the TV. He was definitely going to look for something to take his mind off of images of a wet, naked Mark lounging in his bathtub.
David had a restless night, not sleeping well. He tossed and turned, and had broken dreams about Mark that left him covered in sweat and his body throbbing, when he woke up from yet another one of them. He groaned, sitting up, glad that it was morning. Stumbling out of bed, he had a long, hot shower and a brisk jerk-off to help calm his body down. Then he wandered into the kitchen, seeing that Mark wasn’t up yet. No actor making breakfast at the stove…he scowled and went to get a glass to pour some orange juice into. Carrying the glass, he decided to go and sit out by the pool for a bit until he woke up enough to actually concentrate on his writing.
He padded barefoot down the hallway and out the back door, walking along the concrete apron. He was startled to hear a splashing sound, and it took him a second to realize that someone was swimming in his pool. And there could be only one person…oh shit…
His eyes were riveted on the pool, and he couldn’t look away as a lithe, pale, leanly-muscular body clad only in a pair of skin-tight Speedos pulled itself out of the water, and Mark straightened up. He shook his head to make droplets of water fly from his dark hair, which was a plastered to his head. He turned around, heading toward the table and the towel draped over one of the chairs. David tried hard to swallow past the lump in his throat when he saw the dark-pink nipples hardened from the cool water, and the water beading on all of that pale skin. He couldn’t help himself; his eyes moved down and trained on the bulge under the navy-blue fabric of the Speedos. He was frozen in place, with a raging erection under his bathrobe, while helplessly ogling at and drooling over his young dogsbody.
Much to his horror and chagrin, Mark’s head turned as though he’d heard something. He stopped in his tracks, and they just stood there looking at each other. David felt mortified and embarrassed at having been caught like this. He opened his mouth to apologize before retreating, but Mark called out to him: “Good morning, David. Do you want to take a swim?”
He fought to speak through his Sahara Desert-dry mouth. “No, I just came out here to get some fresh air and try to wake up,” he croaked.
“Okay,” Mark said, not giving any indication that he’d seen the writer ogling him. “You don’t mind if I finish my swim, do you?”
“No,” David said aloud, while thinking: ‘Not at all. Dear God, not at all!’
Mark nodded and walked lithely to the diving board, stepping up onto it. As David watched, still unable to look away, he padded to the end of it and dove smoothly into the water. He was beautiful, the writer thought in helpless longing and lust. Absolutely beautiful.
In the water, Mark broke the surface and gulped in a deep breath of air. He treaded water lazily, a small, evil smile on his face. He’d accurately read the expression on David’s face when he’d seen the writer standing there watching him, and he knew that it was very bad of him to torment his employer like this. But he figured that this was the best way to get past the writer’s resistance to their relationship, which Mark shrewdly knew was going to happen sooner or later anyway. Better it be sooner; he’d really like to get laid, as soon as possible. Especially with a great guy like David, who he was sure would be a lover who was both tender and sexy at the same time. With that in mind…he dove under the water slowly, making sure that his Speedo-clad ass was clearly visible. Maybe he was being mean, but it was all for a good cause…
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