I stripped off the shorts, put the ice cubes back on my chest, and leaned over so that the drips would fal harmlessly into the kitchen sink.
“What, I shudder to ask, are you doing?”
My mother was standing behind me.
I dropped the ice cubes.
“Mom!” I screamed. “Hel o! Naked here! Could you give me a minute?”
“Oh, please, like I haven’t seen that little tushy a mil ion times.” She swatted my ass.
“Mom!”
“Could you please stop screaming like that, darling? Maybe we can save the outraged ‘Moms’ until after I’ve had my coffee.” She reached around me to fil the pot.
I grabbed some paper towels off the rol by the sink and wrapped them around my waist.
“What were you doing, anyway?” my mother asked. She looked in the sink, then at me.
“My lord, were you icing your nipples?”
If I turned any redder, I would have exploded.
“Mom!”
“Again with the ‘Mom!’” she got herself a cup.
“I was not,” I said through gritted teeth, “icing my nipples.”
“Liar. Look at those things. You could take someone’s eye out.”
“Listen,” I told her. “I real y am going to die if you say one more word.”
“I used to do the same thing before my dates with your father, may the Lord rest his soul.”
“Dad’s not dead,” I reminded her, pul ing on my skimpy shorts.
“Wel, not yet,” she said a little wistful y.
I threw on my shirt and hurried to the door. “I gotta run.”
“Wait!” my mother cried after me. “You forgot your pants!”
Randy worked out at Pexx, a hot new gym in Tribeca. His magnificent body had made Randy a bit of a legend in NYC gyms and he usual y belonged to the best and newest ones. This was partly because A. new gyms often hired him to create some buzz, and B. he had already slept with al the real y hot guys at his last gym, so why not move on?
I took a cab to Pexx and arrived there sweaty and aggravated. Like most taxi drivers, this one didn’t believe in using air conditioning. I growled as I handed him the fare.
Pexx was a high tech gym, al stainless steel and industrial carpeting. The air was chil ed to a polar degree-I could have skipped the ice. Electronic dance music pounded from invisible speakers. I went to the front desk and told them I was thinking of joining. They gave me a day pass and I was in.
I walked into the weight room and spotted Randy right away. Al I had to do was fol ow the stares of half the guys in the room.
Randy was lying on an exercise bench doing chest presses. He was wearing baggy green basketbal shorts. The curve of his red underwear, and the throbbing menace within, was clearly visible.
His muscles bulged obscenely beneath his tight tank top. His arms looked as hard and smooth as marble straining beneath the heavy weight.
I remembered my own workout straining beneath Randy’s heavy weight and felt a tingling in my groin.
Stop that, you’re here on a mission.
Randy finished his set and sat up, bumping his head on the weight bar. He rubbed his head, cursed, and looked up. His eyes rol ed in their sockets. If this were a cartoon, he’d have stars and little bluebirds circling around his head.
Then he saw me. “Kevin,” he shouted.
He jumped off the bench and picked me up, effortlessly spinning me around. “You look tasty as ice cream,” he said, hugging me close.
“Thanks, you too.”
His hugging started to turn into grinding. “No, I mean real y, real y great,” he said huskily. “You know I always was kind of sweet on you. Such a hot little-brother piece of trim you are.” He grabbed my ass. “I missed these cupcakes.”
Randy spoke his own language of primal needs: everything was either sex or food. I pushed myself away. “What a surprise to see you here,” I lied.
Randy looked me up and down. I don’t know if eyes can smolder, but his seemed about to burst into flames. Al this sexual attention was starting to get to me.
“Come on, work in with me,” Randy offered. I looked at the three forty-five-pound weights on each side of the bar. “What,” Randy smirked, “want me to throw some more crackers on that?”
“Ha-ha,” I said, “very funny.” I walked around to the back of the bench. “How about I spot you?”
Randy lay back down. “How about you just stand there and inspire me.” In this position, he was looking right up my shorts. “I see London, I see France…” he began.
“Just lift,” I said. And he did, impressively, his body a perfect symphony of strength and symmetry.
And he was right-he didn’t need the spot at al.
I stood there for two more sets, and we made some smal talk. Randy continued to flirt outrageously, and I continued to remind myself that I didn’t come here to get laid. I needed to know what he knew about Al en’s death.
I was trying to figure out how to bring up Topic A when Randy sat up.
“Your turn.” He took two plates off each side. This I could handle.
I lay on the bench and grabbed the bar. Randy’s crotch loomed like heaven above me. His cotton-enclosed cock coiled menacingly.
It seemed to be growing.
I felt myself hardening in sympathetic response.
“Look at you down there,” Randy whispered huskily. “So fucking sweet and creamy. Such a smooth milkshake of a boy. I could slurp you right up.”
I put my hands on the bar to lift, but my blood seemed to be rushing elsewhere.
“I could rip those shorts right off with my teeth,”
Randy purred.
My eyes were riveted to his growing crotch, which seemed to be lowering.
Growing and lowering.
Then al of a sudden his half-hard cock slipped out of his underwear and flopped on my forehead.
“Hey!” I sat up suddenly.
This is when I learned A Very Important Lesson that should be part of every SAT study course: In an accident where a rapidly ascending big head impacts a slowly descending little head, the little head is going to get hurt.
Or, in simpler turns, when you head butt someone in the crotch, it’s gonna hurt.
“Shit!” Randy screamed. He grabbed his bal s and doubled over. “Holy fuck!”
I jumped off the bench and put my hand on his back. “Sorry, sorry, I got kind of startled.”
“Ow!” Randy hopped up and down a little before crouching again. “Fuck me, that hurts!”
“OK, OK,” I said, “I’m sorry.” I waited a few minutes until he seemed to be breathing normal y again.
“I feel terrible,” I said, flinging back my bangs and biting my lower lip. It’s one of my most seductive moves. “Let me buy you a protein shake and make it up to you.”
Randy nodded. “You got it, little man. And then we can talk about why you real y came here.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“You didn’t come here just to work out, did you?
You think I aced Al en Harrington.”
Holy shit. “I do?”
“Wel, I figured as much when you saw me there that night,” Randy said.
“I did?”
“In front of his building.”
“Oh, that. Yeah, wel, sure, I saw you and al,” I lied again, “but, you know, I didn’t think, wel, did you?”
“Come on,” Randy said, extending his hand. “Let’s get that drink.”
