Baby, It's Cold Outside

1974 was Rick's first Christmas away from home, and he was feeling a bit down. He'd stayed home, in Baltimore, Maryland, for his first year in college, but his mother hadn't been able to hack the expenses of even a junior college, although she could afford to go gambling in Las Vegas for Christmas this year, and reality set in that he needed more money to get through college than he now had access to. Reality also was that he'd have to earn the money on his own. If he had a dad, although, of course, there'd been a sperm provider somewhere, his mother had never spoken of him. Rick was an "almost" for a soccer scholarship to the state university in College Park. What he'd managed in the year at junior college was to bring his grades up enough to get into the University of Maryland "sometime in the future."

What he needed now, the university coaches had said, was to toughen up more. More muscle mass. College soccer had become a very physical sport. There wouldn't be a spot on the team or a scholarship for him this year, but if he muscled up and trimmed down a little, maybe next year.

And the point remained that he had to get all of this done on his own—with only whatever assets and abilities he himself possessed.

He'd done a good start on the "muscled up and trimmed down" part, so things were looking up for him—if he could get ahead of the ball financially. And where he'd done the muscled-up part was here in Allentown. A buddy of his—a gay buddy; a gay buddy who had tagged Rick out as gay too and had convinced him he was gay, and a gay bottom—had a lead on a gym in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that, yes, catered to gay clients, but that also was looking for a towel boy, especially a good-looking, not too effeminate gay bottom. The job paid pretty well, if you took side work into account, and it provided free use of the gym whenever the towel boy could work it in.

The friend declared that Rick looked like a winner for the job, which flattered Rick. So, he applied for—and got—the job.

Because of his need to quick quick toughen up even more, Rick made the gym his entire life in Allentown. He had a room and bath in the basement of a middle-aged widow's house who gave him a cut rate in exchange for a fuck once a week. Other than the few hours he spent there, he was at the gym the entire time.

The work conditions were fine, and the clientele was friendly—increasingly friendly as he hardened up and trimmed down more—and learned from the other guys working in the gym how to dress right, cut his hair right, and how to shave his chest and legs and trim his pubes stylishly. Increasingly, the side work offers came, but he was pretty busy most of the time and they weren't coming from the men he was most attracted to. He needed the extra money, though, so there was a blow job here and a quick fuck in the shower or the private rooms they offered at the gym there, and he was able to put aside an extra $150 or so a week.

All very impersonal so far; something he could handle and not get emotionally involved in. Just using his assets to move along the plan.

What attracted him were the thirty-something, self-confident, handsome and cut businessmen who came in and Leon, a black farm team football player with a magnificent physique, who was always working to make his body even more perfect.

The businessmen seemed to be out of Rick's league, though, and the arousal factor and massiveness of Leon scared Rick shitless, so he kept to the older businessmen who had money. Both Leon's musculature and dangerous look—not to mention how Rick saw the man hanging in the showers—provided a mix of arousal and fear. Feeding that were the whispers Rick overheard between the attendants. "Have you done the big black, Leon, yet? Ooolala, you haven't been fucked until you've been fucked by Leon."

The younger guys working out at the gym who were closer to Rick's age mostly didn't have money and wanted it for free. When Rick was really horny—like when he'd watched Leon work out—he'd sometimes give it to the young guys for free, but not often—and never twice, without a big tip. He didn't have the time or energy to get involved with anyone who wasn't going to pay for it.

It was getting around the gym that Rick would sometimes suck a man's cock or take his cock for a price. And one of the masseurs was teaching Rick to give sports massages—which, at this gym, could easily include a blow job, a quick ride, and a big tip. The longer Rick worked there, the better he looked to the clients—and the higher the price he could demand. It also meant the more he was drifting into being a rent boy. Athletic, trim, blond, young men were in high demand.

Rick had only recently turned twenty. He could have passed for eighteen.

* * * *

"Hi, Rick. It is Rick, isn't it?"

Rick looked up from where he was working at the gym's reception desk.

"Um, yes, I'm Rick. Hello, umm, Mr. . . .?"

It was one of the thirty-something businessmen types. One of the better-looking ones—by far. Dark haired, the hair cut so that a lock drooped fetchingly over his forehead in a studied effort at "ah shucks." There was nothing else ah shucks about him, though. He'd come off the exercise floor and was just in running shorts and sneakers. Those looked first class expensive, and the running shorts fit him like a glove, showing a distinct bulge. Great musculature and a deep tan. Almost swarthy looking. Italian, maybe. Fetching perpetual five-o'clock shadow on his cheeks and chin. Not an ounce of fat on him. Black curly hair swirling around huge aureoles, plump nipples that really stuck out, and the curly hair running down his sternum and flat belly and into his pubes, the top edge of which showed above the dipped waistline of his shorts.

Rick went hard just looking at him. He fancied the man was hard himself. Definitely out of Rick's league. But the guy knew his name.

"I'm Winston," the man said, flashing a million-dollar smile.

Of course you are, Rick thought. You probably even own the cigarette company. Definitely out of his league.

"Hi, Mr. Winston."

"No, Winston's my first name. I'm new here. Live over in Bethlehem."

Ah, the better part of the area, east of Allentown, the two cities having grown together. A bit far to come for a gym. But then this wasn't just any gym. This was a gay clientele gym. And a cruising gym at that. So Winston was probably gay. That didn't make Rick's cock go down any.

"I'm told you haven't been here for long either," Winston was saying. "Don't come from Allentown, then?"

"No, my family's in Baltimore." No reason to tell him that his mother was the only family he had and that she said she was going to Las Vegas to gamble for Christmas.

"So," as if Winston had been reading his thoughts, "you got anything going for Christmas Eve? It's just a couple of days away."

"No, other than coming here and working out."

"You look like you've worked out real well already."

Rick's T-shirt and short shorts, the uniform of the gym staff, let Winston know that he was in really good shape.

"The gym here did that for me. And you have to be in good shape to work here."

"I've noticed that," he answered. "It's good incentive for sluggards like me to get in shape."

"You look like you're in great shape to me, Mr. . . . ah . . . Winston." Rick wasn't buttering the man up. He looked like he could do an International Male layout with pride. Rick had seen hot models in this guy's age bracket in the International Male mail-order catalog. Clearing his throat, Rick continued. "I'm trying to get on a university soccer team. Coaches told me I had to toughen up more. That's why I took this job."

"Ah, soccer. Just now entering college?"

"No sir, I'm just twenty. Had a year of junior college and now trying to get into the university on a soccer scholarship."

"Ah, twenty. I would have guessed eighteen. And money's tight, I'll bet."

"You bet right. But glad to have met you." The attendants weren't paid to do a lot of chitchat with the clients, although Rick was reluctant to let this one go. Maybe he'd meet him in one of the private rooms someday. Maybe the guy would like to buy a sports massage. But, again, the man definitely was out of his league.

"Say, if you don't have anything better going for you, I'm having a small party for a few of the guys here at the gym at my house on Christmas Eve. You might drop in. We'll have a lot of fun."

"Thanks for the invite. Can't drop in much of anywhere, though—and not as far away as Bethlehem. No wheels." It wasn't uncommon that he didn't have a car. He'd rarely been in one. It was the mid seventies. His usual wheels were a city or a Greyhound bus.

"Well, of course you haven't. Leon—you know, the big black bruiser football player—is coming. I'm sure he'd be happy to give you a ride."

Yeah, Rick knew Leon all right. His dick gave another lurch at the very mention of Leon giving him a ride. But his scare meter went up a notch too. Rick's dick won out, though. "Yeah, well, if Leon can give me a ride, then maybe."

* * * *

"But, baby, it's cold outside." Winston was singing the line.

"Eh, what?" Rick asked.

He felt trapped in the corner of the long sofa, facing a frenetically flashing Christmas tree that was bigger than Rick's room that he paid for largely with a weekly fuck. Winston was sitting close to him, his arm on the back of the sofa behind Rick. Leon was sitting across from them, next to the Christmas tree, hunched down in a club chair, looking intense and a bit mean, but probably with no intent to.

Winston was shirtless and in some sort of loose lounging pants just for Christmas, all green and red and white in some abstract Christmas tree design. He'd met them at the door that way. Barefoot too. He had a gold medallion on a gold chain around his neck—something he didn't wear in the gym. His nipples were standing out hard, long, and thick in the center of his large aureoles and peeking out of the swirling black curls on his chest. The trim and pattern of the chest hair swirl was so perfect that Rick thought the guy must groom it. Again, Rick's thought went back to "International Male model."

From looking at the erect nipples, Rick knew the man must be hard elsewhere too. Rick hadn't really been fooled what this party was about, but he'd expected several more men, which he'd thought—probably foolishly—would be some sort of protection.

"You keep saying you should leave or you have to go. But Leon doesn't seem ready to go. And look outside. There's a blizzard out there. You really don't want to go out in that. You can stay for one more drink."

One more drink is going to dissolve a blizzard? Rick wondered. He didn't really have a choice, but he was going to find that one or more drinks could cover a multitude of sins.

It had been snowing when Leon picked him up at the gym in his truck. Rick had said that maybe it wasn't a good night to try to go to a party over in Bethlehem, but Leon had been insistent. Leon could be insistent with just a look in his eyes.

Rick had already felt he hadn't dressed warm enough. Just a leather jacket over tight jeans and a T, with sockless sandals. Not even any underwear. He'd known from the beginning what sort of party this was going to be. But it was Christmas Eve and he was lonely. And thinking of Leon and Winston and any number of other guys from the gym who would be at the party had made him horny. And scared. He was thinking gangbang, yes, but probably not of him. He was just a towel boy. Some guy would probably just do him against the wall in a hallway, while Leon and Winston were in on a gangbang of someone more desirable and experienced in the other room.

But when he got to Winston's house and three drinks later, it still was just Winston, Leon, and him.

Leon hadn't said much on the way over from Allentown. He'd established Rick's age, of course, and made the usual remark Rick had come to expect about looking younger than that. He had asked about relatives and about Rick's Christmas and New Years plans—and he'd made clear to Rick that he was gay, no surprise to Rick, and an exclusive top, no surprise to Rick either—but after a while the snow had required his full attention in navigating the increasingly slick streets. He'd done no more than grunted at Rick's several suggestions that they turn back.

As sort of a hint, Rick asked Leon if he lived alone, but Leon hadn't answered that. It certainly wouldn't do for Rick to bring anyone home with him in a snowstorm.

Rick's mind had wandered, though, to thoughts of them getting stuck in a snow bank and Leon doing him here in the truck cab, with the radio playing cheery Christmas carols. That thought had held over until they reached Winston's place, a large ground-floor apartment in an imposing old town house in the old part of Bethlehem, the area all lit up and decorated for Christmas as would be expected in a town named what it was and inhabited by rich, competitive people.

The thought of Leon doing him in the truck cab held until they arrived, so, of course, Rick was hard inside his tight jeans—and of course Winston had seen that right off and, no doubt, decided from the get go that Rick was going to let Winston lay him.

Everything Winston was doing was operating from that premise.

"You don't want to go yet," Winston said. "Not sure you and Leon can even go now until morning. Does that upset you?"

"Probably means the other guys won't make it here for the party either," Rick answered, evasively. "You said you were having some of the guys from the gym over for the party."

"I said a few. There are three of us. Leon, you, and me. That's a few of the guys from the gym."

He didn't actually say he hadn't invited anyone else, but Rick got the message that they weren't expecting anyone else. "Well, if Leon thinks we can still—"

"You know, you have a perfectly shaped mouth," he said, interrupting. He moved a finger to Rick's lips and rubbed across them. Instinctively, Rick let his lips open, and Winston pressed a thumb inside. They held there for a few seconds.

"Are you going to let me kiss you?"

"Yes," Rick answered in a low, trembly voice. Not in his best diction, though, with a man's plump thumb in his mouth. What could he say? Winston was a god compared to what Rick usually dealt in. And who was he kidding? He knew he'd come here to be fucked. He knew from the way Winston had been acting since they'd arrived that the man was going to do more than just kiss him. And there was Leon sitting over there in that club chair next to the blinking Christmas tree too. Unless he was just a watcher, Rick knew he was going to more than kiss him too. Rick had actually dreamed about it in the truck on the way over.

Coming out of the long, sensual kiss, Winston resumed tracing the curve of Rick's lips with the thumb that had already been inside. "Such beautiful lips. You know what else those beautiful lips would be great for?"

"What?"

Winston's free hand pulled a thick wallet out from somewhere in his loose lounge pants. He slapped it down on the coffee table in front of them. The snap almost made Rick waken from the lethargy the strong drinks had floated him into, but not quite.

The wallet was thick with bills. Winston obviously wanted Rick to see that it was. He opened it with his fingers and took two fifties out, laying them side by side on the coffee table.

"I'll bet those beautiful lips of yours give divine blow jobs. The guys at the gym tell me you give good blow jobs. First me and then Leon over there."

Winston's hands went to the back of Rick's head and guided him down as Rick turned in the sofa and sank to his knees between Winston's spread legs. Somehow the man's fly had gotten open already, and a long, long, long—not terribly thick—but really long and erect cock was curving up from a trimmed, curly haired black bush.

When Rick was done with Leon's cock too—with Leon sitting mostly impassive but grunting his pleasure—Rick moved his jaw around to make sure he still could do it. Leon was hung like a horse—or something larger, although Rick couldn't think what. Rick had known he was from the peeking he'd done in the shower room at the gym. He looked over to Winston who was busy laying out several lines of white powder on a sheet of paper on the coffee table.

When Winston looked up, he motioned Rick back to the corner of the sofa. "A jaw-breaking giant, isn't he?" he asked with a smile. He didn't wait for a reply, though. He was crowding Rick into the corner of the sofa again, pulling Rick's T-shirt over his head and, after a deep kiss on the mouth, moving his mouth down Rick's smooth chest, while he unsnapped and unzipped Rick's jeans and flared the fly open.

"Um, came for more than giving blow jobs, didn't we?" he murmured as he discovered that Rick wasn't wearing briefs. Rick threw he head back over the arm of the sofa, gasped for breath, and moaned, as Winston sucked hard on his bulb and then glided his lips down the shaft and started to suck Rick off. Rick drifted off into wonderland, moving his hips slowly against Winston's face. The blow job was maybe the most expert one he'd ever had. He was absorbing pointers left and right.

When Winston was done, he sat up on the sofa and looked over at Leon. "Want a snort?" he asked.

Leon demurred with a shake of his head, not changing expression at all. He was trouserless now, though, his huge dong arching out between his spread legs, drooping toward the floor from the heaviness of the bulb.

"You?" Winston asked Rick, turning to him. "It's Christmas. A snowy Christmas present for you?"

Rick, his head already in a muddle, sank to his knees at the table and took the paper straw Winston was handing him.

* * * *

Winston was leaning over Rick's torso in the corner of the sofa. Rick was naked now. Winston was still wearing his lounge pants, but his cock, throbbingly erect, was jutting out of them. Rick had only snorted one line, which was making it hard for him to concentrate. Thus far Winston had snorted two, with negligible effect. Rick hadn't done anything but pot before, and rarely that. It was out of his price range and had always been supplied by someone who was going to lay him.

That was exactly what was happening now. Winston was getting ready to lay Rick. He'd just pulled four hundred-dollar bills out of his fat wallet and stuffed the money in the pocket of Rick's jeans, now puddled on the floor between the front of the sofa and the coffee table. The money for the blow jobs had already been stuffed in a jeans pocket. Winston went out of his way to show that he was paying for this.

"Two hundred for me; the other two hundred for Leon when I'm done. Anything we want."

He started slow, lifting Rick's long, finely muscled right leg that had been trapped between Winston's side and the back of the sofa and kissing and licking up Rick's leg, whispering to him how nice and long the leg was. Rick watched him with a glazed smile on his face while Winston kissed and sucked his toes.

Rick thought they'd reached the main event when Winston turned him over sideways in the sofa, his knees pushing into the cushions under the sheet Winston had covered the end of the sofa with to keep the sofa clean. Rick's chest rested on the cool leather of the sofa arm. He let his head and arms hang down over the side. He was so mellowed out, despite what he anticipated was going to happen now, that he could have dozed off.

He might have dozed off, if Leon hadn't appeared at the side of the couch, lifting Rick's head by the hair, and presented his cock for sucking while Winston ran his hands over Rick's buttocks, spread the butt cheeks, and blew on Rick's hole.

Winston wasn't ready to mount him yet. His lips and tongue went to Rick's asshole and Winston started to open the young blond up. Rick moaned, a moan that segued into a deep groan, muffled by Leon's thick staff moving in and out of his open mouth, as Winston grabbed and squeezed, rolled, and distended Rick's balls while he rimmed his asshole.