The Adonis Dating Service 5
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
Too painfully shy to approach men on his own, Curtis Carmody
seeks the dating service’s help and is matched with Corey Atwood.
Well-suited, they bond quickly and fall in love. But Corey is a
public speaker, and Curtis is cowed by the public contact involved
in banquet speeches and back-of-room sales.
Afraid that he is holding Corey back, Curtis contemplates breaking
up with the man he loves so much. Corey suggests he try
hypnosis to cure him of his affliction, and though several other
supposed remedies have failed, Curtis agrees to give it a try.
He accompanies Corey on a trip to New York, where Corey is to
give his biggest and most important speech yet. They have a
wonderful mini-vacation, but Curtis is haunted by his concern that
he is holding Corey back in his career. Then, the afternoon before
the speech, Corey gets sick and develops laryngitis! Curtis has an
audacious plan…but can he pull it off?
Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Contemporary
Length: 22,006 words
THE ADONIS DATING
SERVICE: CURTIS
The Adonis Dating Service 5
Diana Sheridan
EROTIC ROMANCE
MANLOVE
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance ManLove
THE ADONIS DATING SERVICE: CURTIS
Copyright © 2012 by Diana Sheridan
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62241-533-5
First E-book Publication: September 2012
Cover design by Christine Kirchoff
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For Cassandra Pierce,
a good friend and a very hot writer
THE ADONIS DATING
SERVICE: CURTIS
The Adonis Dating Service 5
DIANA SHERIDAN
Copyright © 2012
Chapter 1
The maroon lettering on the office door said, “Adonis Dating
Service.” Obviously he was in the right place, yet Curtis hesitated
before turning the doorknob and entering the offices. The cause of his
hesitation was twofold. In the first place, he didn’t know what waited
for him inside. Would he be subjected to an awkward, difficult
interview, possibly with a number of people? That was just the sort of
situation a shy guy like him wanted to avoid. And in the second place,
once he went in and signed up, he would be paired with another man,
and that would be just one more difficult situation for him.
Yes, of course he wanted a boyfriend. He had the same needs as
everyone else—for love, for companionship, for sex, for someone to
share his life with—but it was all so damned difficult for him. Should
he forget the whole thing and just go home? No! He willed himself to
turn the knob and enter the office.
There was no receptionist in the outer office, but of the three
doors that led off that reception area, two were open, and voices came
from one of them. He followed the voices and stood in the open
doorway. He wondered if he should knock or say “Excuse me?” but
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
9
one of the two men inside—the one who was standing up—noticed
him and looked up.
“Hi,” he said with an affable smile. “I’m Ryan, and this is my
partner, Todd.”
At that, the other man looked up and smiled, too. “Come on in.
That is, if you’re a client. If you’re a salesman, we don’t want any—
whatever you’re selling.” He smiled again, which softened his words.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Curtis advanced toward the desk. “I saw your ad in the Surfspray
Siren. I could use some help finding—um—someone special.”
“Special someones are our specialty,” Ryan said. “Why don’t you
sit down in the chair over here and let Todd help you. I’ll be in my
office.” He turned and exited, leaving Curtis alone with Todd. One-
on-one—now, that wasn’t so bad, Curtis thought to himself, though
he still quailed at the thought of an intensive interview. He was much
relieved when Todd pulled a questionnaire out of a drawer and
handed it over to him. The questionnaire was long, several pages, and
extensive in the areas it covered, but writing answers wasn’t nearly as
difficult as talking to people.
“You want me to fill this out?” Curtis asked, whipping out a pen
just as Todd picked one up from his desk and offered it to him.
“If you wouldn’t mind. All our matching is done by humans—
Ryan or me. No computerized matches here. We guarantee you at
least three matches, maybe more. We can’t guarantee love, of course,
but quite a few of our matches have been successful. Ryan and I even
met our significant others through the service.”
“Oh—then you and Ryan aren’t…?”
“Domestic partners? No, just business partners. We were a couple
at one time, but that ended. We’ve stayed business partners, though.
Not just partners but good friends, too.”
“That’s nice to hear,” said Curtis with a shy smile. He was
relaxing a little, feeling more comfortable now.
10
Diana Sheridan
“I’ll need to take your picture, too,” Todd said, getting up, going
over to a shelf, and taking down a camera. “Do you mind looking up a
minute?”
Curtis had his head down, busily filling out the questionnaire, but
he looked up, smiled for the camera, and blinked at the flash. Todd
took another shot, just to be sure, then said, “Thanks,” and Curtis
resumed his task.
The questionnaire was very thorough, asking about his likes and
dislikes, his preferences in people, his self-description of his
personality, his occupation, hobbies, education, pet hates, and more—
much, much more. Feeling more comfortable now, he essayed a bit of
humor. “Geez, this thing asks everything but when I last took a crap.”
“Oh—did we leave that out?” asked Todd, who was not above
making jokes himself.
At last Curtis finished his task. “Now what?” he asked.
“Now you pay us,” said Todd. While Curtis reached for his wallet,
Todd added, “Then you go home and wait to hear from us. You’ll get
at least three e-mail messages, each addressed to you and one of the
men we’ve matched you with, introducing you to each other. After
that, you’re on your own.”
Curtis was filled with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension.
Would he meet the love of his life? But what price would he pay,
going through awkward meetings, before he finally met the man of
his dreams? “Well, thank you,” he said, rising from the chair and
extending his hand to shake Todd’s. “Say good-bye to your partner
for me.”
“He’s right in the next office. You can stick your head in the door
if you want and say good-bye yourself.”
“No, that’s all right. Thanks.”
Curtis stopped in a nearby coffee shop after he left. It was eleven
thirty, not really too early for lunch and well ahead of the lunch rush’s
start. He would be able to sit at a table and still not feel guilty about it
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
11
even though he was eating alone. He took a table in the rear and
watched the people drift in.
Although he was uncomfortable talking to people, he liked to
people watch. Sometimes he even made up stories about the people he
saw out in public. This woman was a teacher, recently widowed and
raising a five-year-old son on her own. That man was working on a
secret invention, so secret that he wouldn’t even tell his lover what it
was, but night after night he went down to his basement workshop to
toil in solitude. The moustached fellow was a Midwesterner who had
moved to gay-friendly Surfspray to escape the narrow attitudes of his
hometown and was desperately praying his family would come to
accept him as he was.
Then a fellow walked in who was bald-headed. Curtis had always
been attracted to that look and had even noted it as a preference on the
questionnaire he had filled out for Todd. This time, when he started
imagining the fellow’s story, he decided that the bald man had just
broken up with his lover and was sad at this turn of events—but then
he spotted Curtis sitting there, was immediately attracted, and decided
that here was a worthy successor to his last boyfriend.
Curtis got so caught up in this fantasy that he didn’t realize the
waitress was standing at his table. “Excuse me, but I asked if you’re
ready to order,” the waitress said, finally catching his attention.
He hadn’t even looked at the menu, but he went with an old
familiar standby. “Can I get a white meat chicken salad with bacon on
rye toast?” he asked tentatively, mildly uncomfortable even in this
minimal encounter.
“Our chicken salad is always all white meat,” the waitress said in
a manner that left Curtis feeling he had insulted her. Then she leaned
over and, in a conspiratorial voice, added, “But confidentially, it’s
really turkey salad.” She gave him a broad wink. “Something to
drink?”
He replied, “A glass of milk, please.” She wrote his order down
on her pad and moved on to the next table.
12
Diana Sheridan
Curtis went back to constructing stories about the people around
him in the restaurant until the waitress returned with his order. As he
took his first bite, he started wondering how long it would take Todd
to come up with three matches for him. At the thought that one or
even all three might be waiting for him in his e-mail inbox even now,
he snarfed down the rest of his sandwich hurriedly, gulped the milk,
wiped his upper lip, which he was sure sported a milk moustache, and
looked for the waitress to signal her that he was ready for the check.
But the waitress was not eager to send him on his way. “How
about dessert?” she asked.
“Just the check,” he said.
“We have some fresh apple pie. With raisins and walnuts. Made
right here on the premises, and fresh out of the oven—still warm, in
fact. How about a piece?”
As eager as he was to get home, that apple pie sounded good, and
the concept of putting walnuts in it intrigued him. “Okay,” he said,
half reluctantly as he thought of the messages that might be waiting
for him at home.
“Coffee with that? Or more milk?”
You’re pushing it. “Just the pie.”
“Okey-dokey.” She wheeled around, headed straight to the
kitchen, and returned promptly with a generous piece of pie. “I added
whipped cream,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“It’s good with whipped cream,” he said agreeably and dug in,
polishing the pie off rapidly both because it was good and because he
was still antsy to get home.
The waitress had left the check after bringing the pie. He put
down a generous tip and headed up front to the cashier, paying the bill
and answering the cashier’s “Was everything all right?” with a
reassuring, “Just fine, thanks.”
Reclaiming his car, he drove home to the duplex he owned and
lived in the east side of. The rental unit on the west side brought in
monthly income to supplement what he earned from his two
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
13
occupations. One was crafting exquisite, one-of-a-kind fishing lures,
which he sold both locally and through a website. The other was also
an occupation that required the use of both his hands and his
creativity. Curtis crafted old-fashioned wooden windup toys that he
sold primarily through another website, though there were a few
specialty stores and toy stores across the country, and one catalog,
that bought his creations and sold them.
When he got home, there was indeed an e-mail from the Adonis
service. Todd was introducing Curtis and a fellow named Gene to
each other. The message, in the dating service’s usual manner,
pointed out a couple of things the two had in common, one being that
Gene was a fishing charter boat captain while Curtis crafted fishing
lures for a living and fished for a hobby. It also included both men’s
phone numbers.
Curtis had barely finished reading the message when his phone
rang. He checked the ID and saw that the caller was Gene. “Hello.
This is Curtis.”
“Curtis, my name is Gene. I don’t know if you’ve checked your e-
mail recently, but the dating service matched us up. I think you sound
great, and I’m very eager to meet you. I’m available this evening, and
I’d love to have dinner with you, go see a movie with you, and
perhaps go back to your place afterward and see how we feel about
each other. I have a whole week of open evenings next week, and I’d
like to see you for as many of them as you’re available for…”
Whoa! This guy moves much too fast and pushes much too hard!
“Don’t you think we should see each other once and see how we feel
about each other before we start planning a whole week?”
“I just know we’re going to like each other. What’s your address,
and what time can I pick you up tonight?”
Back off, fella! “I’d really like to see who my other two matches
are before I decide who to see first.”
“You have to grab life by the horns. Seize the moment! What time
tonight and what address?”
14
Diana Sheridan
“No! You’re too pushy! Are you sure you’re a fishing captain and
not an insurance salesman?”
“Ha-ha! Very funny. But seriously, what time and where?”
“Seriously, you’re too pushy. I wasn’t kidding about that. We’d
never work out as a couple.”
“You certainly want to give it a chance and meet me before you
make your mind up.”
“Good-bye, Gene. Thanks for calling. Have a nice life.” Click.
Well, if that was any sample of the Adonis Dating Service’s
matches, he’d wasted his time and his money. Much deflated, Curtis
returned to his computer. A second match had come in, a fellow
named Mac—short for MacCalister—and with a feeling of let’s-get-
this-over-with, Curtis fought back his usual shyness and dialed Mac’s
number.
The conversation was pleasant, and Mac seemed a decent sort, but
Curtis didn’t sense any sparks. What did you expect—to fall in love
during the first phone conversation? Nonetheless, he told Mac that he
wanted to see who his third match was before deciding whom to
actually go out with. “I’ll be back in touch—either way,” he told Mac,
wished him a good afternoon, and hung up.
By now the computer held a third match for him. This e-mail
message introduced him and a Corey to each other. Corey was a life
coach, a motivational speaker, and the author of a recent book.
Resignedly, Curtis reached for his phone, but it rang even before he
could start dialing Corey’s number. Corey was faster on the draw.
“Is this Curtis? My name is Corey. You don’t know me yet, but if
you’ve checked your e-mail recently, you know who I am.” The voice
was deep, mellow, sexy, and all-male. It was easy to imagine him at
the front of the room, giving a motivational talk…and commanding
the full attention of everyone in the room. That voice certainly had
Curtis’s attention. He wondered if Corey looked as yummy as he
sounded. But it was Corey who asked about looks first. “I’d like to
meet you someplace, maybe for a drink, and see if we want to take
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
15
this any further. But what do you look like? How will I know you
when I see you?”
Well, good. He wasn’t being as pushy as that Gene had been!
“Um—I don’t drink. I’ll be happy to meet you someplace, and I’ll be
happy to describe myself for you, but I’m just not a drinker. Never
was. I’m five feet ten, have reddish-brown hair, green eyes, a pug
nose, and the kind of body you’d expect on someone who lift
weights.”
“Gym rat, huh?” Corey chuckled.
“No, actually I have a workout room at home.”
“Gyms can get pricey. And some of the trainers can be little
Hitlers. If I’m not being too personal, was one of those your reason
for working out at home?”
“No, um, actually, I’m, um, kinda shy. So I’m just more
comfortable working out at home. Hopefully you can understand
that.”
“Yes, I can. But I guess you’re waiting for a description of me.
I’m bald-headed. Not naturally—I shave it. I do wear a goatee, so my
face isn’t totally devoid of hair. I have dark eyes, and I’m tall—six-
foot-two and a half—and slim. Not skinny and underdeveloped, just
slim. My preferred exercise is walking, which is good for the heart
and good for keeping your weight down but doesn’t bulk up your
muscles.”
Bald with a goatee? Curtis was drooling. This guy he wanted to
meet ASAP! “You sound positively edible,” he said, his voice
cracking under the strain of being so forward. “I do drink coffee.
Since I don’t drink liquor, would you like to make a date for coffee?
We could meet around four o’clock some afternoon at the coffee shop
across from the Franklin Street gate of Bicentennial Park. They have a
garden out back with tables. If the weather’s nice, we could sit out
there and get to know each other, and if we both feel good about each
other, we could go out to dinner after that. The coffee shop is close to
Mickey’s Madness. Or if that doesn’t suit you, we can go somewhere
16
Diana Sheridan
else. Or we can just say ’bye after coffee if we don’t want to take it
any further.” But if you’re as delicious as your voice and your self-
description, we won’t say g’bye after coffee.
“Sounds like a workable plan. I somehow don’t think our date will
end with coffee.”
Yes!
“The coffee shop you suggested is fine, and four o’clock is a
workable time for me since I’m self-employed. I have a client this
afternoon at five, so it couldn’t be today, but I’m free tomorrow
afternoon. Does that work for you?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll look for you out in the back unless the weather’s bad.”
But the weather cooperated nicely. It was sunny and warm but not
too hot, a lovely October day, and although Curtis, in his eagerness,
arrived ten minutes early, he spotted a man he was sure was Corey
already seated in the coffee shop’s garden when he arrived. “Corey?”
he asked, as he approached the table.
The man stood up, extended his hand, and with a broad smile,
said, “Curtis! And nice and early, too. Good!” His handshake was
firm, his palm dry, and his smile warm and sincere. Curtis sat down,
and Corey reseated himself as well. “Now, tell me all about Curtis.”
“You already know some of it. I’m thirty-two and a native of
Indiana, though I lived in Atlanta for a couple of years before I came
to Surfspray. I had a job as a sales clerk in a toy store, which is where
I got the idea to create wooden wind-up toys. I love to fish, which is
how I got intrigued with making lures. At first I just made my own,
but friends and neighbors kept after me to make some for them, and
eventually I saw the business potential in it.
“When my grandfather died, and I inherited a nice chunk of his
money, I sank it into a duplex where I could live in one half and rent
out the other. The house isn’t fancy, but it’s mine free and clear. I
have the whole basement turned into a workshop, and I’m happy to sit
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
17
there and putter most of the day and get paid for my creations.
Upstairs, one of the bedrooms is a workout room.”
“Don’t you get lonely? It must be a solitary existence, living by
yourself and working by yourself all day.”
“It is, and I do. That’s why I signed up with the dating service.
But I’m terribly shy, so an occupation where I work all on my own
has its definite advantages for me. I could never do what you do—
stand up in a room full of people and give a speech. Even working
one-on-one with clients like you do in your life coaching would be
tough for me. Once I get to know someone, I’m all right, but the
initial getting-to-know-you period is tough. Just sitting here and
talking to you like this isn’t easy for me, either. But I’m always
fighting it, trying to overcome it. Maybe someday someone will
invent a magic anti-shyness pill. I hope I live to see it! I’d love to be
more comfortable with strangers and groups of people.”
“You sound like you’re doing all right talking to me now.”
“It isn’t easy. But it’s your turn. Tell me about yourself.”
Before he could, however, the waitress came over to take their
orders. Curtis requested a double mocha java, and Corey asked for a
mint tea. “Anything else?” asked the waitress, but they both declined.
Then Corey took his turn filling in Curtis about himself. “I’m
thirty-six, born and raised in the suburbs of LA, lived in Boston for a
while but didn’t like the climate, and I’ve been living here in
Surfspray for almost five years now. In Boston I worked for a
publisher as a junior editor, but people were always coming to me for
advice on how to mend their lives, be more efficient, follow their
dreams, be more proactive, get more accomplished, and one day
someone said to me, ‘You really ought to charge for giving so much
advice,’ and a light went off.
“But I said to myself, ‘If I’m going to make a major change like
giving up my steady income and taking a flyer on being a life coach,
now’s the time to get out of this cold climate, too,’ so I took a
vacation week and came down to Surfspray to check it out. I’d heard
18
Diana Sheridan
about it, heard it was gay-friendly, a nice town overall, and with a
favorable climate. I checked it out, confirmed what I’d heard, and
decided to move here. I rented a room for a month, went back and
quit my job, sold some of my stuff and put most of the rest of my
belongings in a trailer, and came back here. I put my stuff in storage
for a month, found a house to rent in a neighborhood I like, moved,
got my stuff out of storage, and set up shop as a life coach.
“The public speaking and the book just naturally evolved out of
that, over time. But enough about me. Tell me more about yourself.
How do you happen to be on the loose? What happened to your last
relationship…if that’s not a painful subject?”
“No, not painful,” Curtis said as the waitress returned and
unobtrusively set their orders down on the table, along with the check.
“My last boyfriend kept pushing me into uncomfortable public
situations—business parties and stuff like that. He had his own
business and was always having these parties for business purposes,
and he expected me to cohost them with him. I kept trying to explain
to him how awkward and uncomfortable and unpleasant it was for
me, but he just didn’t get it. Ultimately I couldn’t take it anymore. It
wasn’t just the situations themselves. That was bad enough. But
because he was always pushing me into these situations, I felt that
either he just didn’t understand me or, even worse, he just didn’t care.
I mean, if he had an ounce of respect for my feelings, he wouldn’t
have insisted that I keep doing things I wasn’t comfortable doing. So
finally I broke up with him. That was almost half a year ago. It’s time
I met someone else. So here we are. Now, what about you? What
happened to your last relationship?”
“He couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. Pure and simple. He had
zipper issues. Fidelity is important to me. Of course there’s the health
angle, too—the more you screw around, the greater the hazard, even
assuming you use latex. But even beyond that, there’s the emotional
angle. I caught him cheating, and he begged me to forgive him and
swore it wouldn’t happen again. It hadn’t been just one guy, either,
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
19
but he cried—literally—and begged me to forgive him. I told him
okay, but if it happened again that was absolutely it. Well, not two
months later I found him cheating on me again, and that was the end
of it. I meant what I’d said. So it was over. That was almost three
months ago. I was hurt and angry, and in no condition to start a new
relationship. But I think I’m finally ready. So, as you said, here we
are.”
“Well, I promise if we become a couple, you won’t find zipper
issues with me. I’m not a sex-crazed cheater. I love sex as much as
the next guy, but I’m faithful to a fault.”
“And I won’t push you into anything you’re not comfortable with.
I will say that I’d like to hope you’d come to my speeches when
they’re local, and maybe even come along with me to some of the
out-of-town ones. We could have a fun time traveling together. But
there aren’t any parties or social occasions associated with them.
Sometimes I do back-of-the-room book sales after a speech, but you
don’t have to participate in that if you don’t want to. You can kinda
hang back and blend into the crowd if you’re more comfortable that
way.”
“So, what do you enjoy doing for fun besides fishing?” Curtis
asked.
“I have a couple of model boats I like to sail—mostly over at the
duck pond.”
“Do I sense water as a theme here? Are you drawn to water or
something?”
“I never thought about it. Even though you smiled when you said
it, like you were teasing, you may be on to something.”
“Tell me you don’t have a rubber duckie in your bathtub.”
Corey laughed. Then he said, “Well, we seem to be hitting it off
well enough. Shall we adjourn to Mickey’s Madness?”
Curtis looked at his watch. “It’s barely five fifteen. I’m all for
having dinner with you, but it’s a little early yet. How would you feel
about a walk in Bicentennial Park first? You said you like to walk.”
20
Diana Sheridan
“I’m up for that. We can talk about the dinner venue as we walk.
Mickey’s Madness is fine with me, but if there’s somewhere else
you’d rather go…?”
“I feel the same way. I’m good with Mickey’s, or I’m good with
going somewhere else.”
They both reached for the check. Corey was quicker. “Beat you to
it!” he exulted teasingly.
“Then dinner’s on me!” Curtis insisted.
As they got up and walked inside to pay, Corey asked, “What’s
your favorite kind of food? Do you have a cuisine you particularly
like, or one you don’t?”
“I don’t love Italian. I do like Turkish, but we don’t have a good
Turkish restaurant anywhere around here. I love shellfish but not
regular fish so much. I’m nuts for ribs. I like comfort foods like
meatloaf, but not when I eat out. I can cook that kind of food at home,
and I do. I suppose I could cook ribs at home, too, and once in a while
I do, but they never taste the same. I love Thai foods, especially hot
curries, and I’m crazy about lamb and very fond of interesting ways to
prepare pork and chicken. A good roast chicken is fine, but, again,
that’s something I can make at home. When I go out, I want to eat
something different. I’m a pretty decent cook, not gourmet but better
than passable. How about you?”
As they walked out the door and headed toward Bicentennial
Park, Corey answered, “I’m a pretty fair cook myself. I love fish and
eat it both at home and out. I’m not big on Italian either—except that I
do like pizza.”
“Oh, I like pizza, too,” Curtis cut in. “When I said I’m not crazy
for Italian, I wasn’t thinking of pizza. I was thinking more of pasta
and of tomato-based sauces and that sort of thing. I put pizza in a
whole other category. I like it, although I refuse to eat pineapple
pizza. I think it’s an abomination!”
“I thoroughly agree. I like pineapple on hamsteak, though.”
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
21
“Me, too. Although I prefer chives instead of the traditional
maraschino cherry.”
“Hmm…interesting thought. I’ll have to try that sometime,”
Corey said.
“I’ll cook it for you. Although you know what’s even better?”
“What?”
“Hamsteak with a black bean sauce. Loaded with lots of garlic.”
“You’re making my mouth water. We may have to cut this walk
short and head over to Mickey’s now.”
“I’ll change the subject,” Curtis said.
They were well into the park now, and a chipmunk ran across
their path. “Cute critter,” observed Corey. “You’re a cute critter, too.”
He stopped in his tracks and kissed Curtis lightly on the lips. Curtis
returned the kiss with fervor but broke it off before it got too intense.
They resumed their walk, but every now and then they stopped to
kiss, and gradually the kisses got more intense. “We’re going to have
to go back to one of our houses together after dinner, I can see,” said
Corey throatily.
“I second the emotion,” Curtis agreed.
They walked a little longer, getting to know each other better,
until finally Curtis said, “I don’t know about you, but my stomach is
growling.”
“I’d be happy to turn around and head back.”
They returned to their respective cars and proceeded to Mickey’s
Madness, a casual eatery whose specialties were omelets and various
shrimp dishes. Naturally, they featured a shrimp omelet, although
neither Curtis nor Corey ordered it. Curtis ordered Shrimp Mickey, a
twist on shrimp creole involving brandy. “I thought you don’t like
alcohol,” said Corey, surprised.
“I don’t drink. I don’t like what it does to me. I have no problem
with eating foods prepared with alcoholic beverages, though. Alcohol
in food doesn’t affect me, and it’s not like I have an allergy or an
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Diana Sheridan
addiction problem or anything else like that. I just don’t love
alcohol’s effects on me.”
Corey, still drooling over the concept of hamsteak with a black
bean sauce, discovered that the special of the day was shrimp in a
black bean sauce and eagerly ordered a portion of that for himself.
Although it was a totally incongruous side dish, he ordered onion
rings. “So sue me.” He shrugged. “I like onion rings.” Curtis ordered
peas with bacon and pimientos, and saffron rice.
Their dinners were served quickly, and at the prospect of going
home and tumbling into bed with each other, both devoured their
meals rapidly. “Do you want dessert?” asked the waiter as he cleared
their dishes.
“We’ll have it at home,” said Corey, with a wink at Curtis.
“My place or yours?” asked Curtis when the waiter had left.
“Either. I’m easy.”
“Let’s go to mine, then. Follow me. It’s not that far.”
It was dark out by now, but Curtis drove slowly and made sure not to
lose Corey en route. When they got back to Curtis’s house, they
parked their respective cars and hurried into the house. Corey lost no
time in kissing Curtis as soon as they got in the front door. It was a
deep, probing-tongue kiss, and their bodies surged together and
pressed urgently against each other. Curtis felt the hard protuberance
that strained at the crotch of Corey’s pants as it ground against
Curtis’s equally hard dick. Deliberately, he rotated his hips so that he
was hunching against his burgeoning hardness, and Corey drew him
right down to the floor. “I can’t wait another minute till we can get to
the bedroom, but at least the floor is carpeted,” he said, his voice
suddenly huskily lower than it had been.
“I have rubbers in my pocket,” Curtis said. “We don’t even have
to go to the bedroom for that.” Corey hastily stripped. Curtis followed
suit, and soon the only thing dressed was their dicks.
Corey’s teeth latched onto Curtis’s rigid nipples, nibbling
voraciously at the rubbery nubs, one and then the other, going back
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
23
and forth between them like a hyperactive windshield wiper. His
tongue got into the act, too, lapping and laving, swiping across the flat
tips of Curtis’s tits, dragging the raspy sides across the sensitized
flesh.
When in Rome… Curtis pulled away from Corey’s tongue and
teeth so he could lavish Corey’s nipples with the same kind of
treatment. His skin tasted vaguely salty, a legacy of sweat in the
Carolina October heat, and his body wriggled responsively under
Curtis’s ardent ministrations. His dick bobbed urgently in the air,
demanding Curtis’s attention, and he decided to give it what it
wanted.
Abandoning Corey’s nipples in favor of more interesting terrain,
Curtis tongued his way across the striated planes of Corey’s chest,
through the sparse sprinkling of hairs that graced the landscape of his
toned abdomen, and down into the thick tangle of coarse curlies that
covered his groin.
Even amid that torrid tangle, he had no trouble finding Corey’s
thick dick. Rising majestically from his musk-scented pubes, it
towered above its surroundings in a commanding and demanding
way. Curtis licked his way up the rubber-wrapped column, tracing the
veins that stood out in bold relief, licking his way toward the tip.
His slit was seeping a prodigious quantity of lube. Curtis could
feel the warmth of the oozing fluid beneath his diligently questing
tongue as he dug down to tantalize the tender glans through the
protective latex barrier. Then he wrapped his compressing lips around
Corey’s shivering cock and tightened his grip as he began a slow,
teasing descent.
“Suck it. Suck it hard!” Corey urged him, but he took his sweet
time. He was enjoying sucking Corey almost as much as Corey was
enjoying being sucked, and he was damned if he’d rush through it.
Now Curtis let go of Corey’s bulbous crown and wrapped his lips
around the middle of Corey’s dick. From there he slid his lips up and
down the length, ignoring the flared dickhead, feeling the pulsating
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Diana Sheridan
tremors that raced through his hot organ. Corey whimpered his need
and hunched his jutting pelvis at Curtis in a pitiable agony of
unfulfilled desire.
Cupping Corey’s balls, Curtis hefted them in his palm. He
enjoyed the squishy feel of the roiling mass as the hair-sprinkled sac
lay against the ticklish skin of his hand. “Blow me. Suck me. I can’t
take this!” Corey groaned in terrible need. Taking pity, Curtis
returned his lips to the swollen crown of Corey’s hyperinflated cock.
But before he began to suck, he first had to loll his tongue around
Corey’s corona. Curtis’s indolent tongue took its time bringing sweet,
sexy sensations to Corey’s writhing body, but at last he’d had his fill
of feeling his ridge, his snaking veins, his taut-skinned crown, and the
bloated shaft of his cock, and he enveloped Corey’s apple-like knob
within his lips’ grip and compressed his mouth tightly around a point
about one-third of the way down his spongy stalk.
“Yessss!” Corey exulted. “Oh, oh god, yes, suck it! Suck it! Blow
me!”
And Curtis did. He sucked. He started his slow but inexorable trip
down Corey’s broad, thick, swollen dick until his lips were kissing the
base of his stalk. And then he sucked his way back up again.
“Faster!” Corey urged.
But Curtis ignored him. He kept his lips tight and his suction
deep, but Curtis moved excruciatingly slowly as his lips traversed the
length of Corey’s dick from tip to base and back again.
Corey tried to take control of the act. He tried to raise the rate at
which his greedy dick galloped in and out of Curtis’s mouth. Stuffing
his gullet with his rampaging dick, Corey crammed Curtis full and
shoved in as deep as he could get. But Curtis wouldn’t let him set the
pace.
At length, however, Curtis relented, not because of Corey’s
insistent urgings but entirely at the whim of his own need. He was
growing increasingly horny and was desperate to bury his dick in
either one of Corey’s hot holes. Although he hadn’t quite made up his
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
25
mind which hole he wanted to claim as his prize, he knew that he had
to get Corey off before he could satisfy his own need.
For a minute or two, he concentrated on Corey’s dickhead, while
wrapping his hand around the shaft of Corey’s dick. As he sucked the
bulbous corona and lapped it with his tongue, his hand demandingly
jacked Corey’s shaft. But when he felt Corey’s dick start to swell with
impending orgasm, he released his choke hold on Corey’s dick so that
his lips could encompass the whole of it. Soon his slit was eye-to-eye
with Curtis’s tonsils, then slithering beyond them, then buried deep in
his gullet.
And then Curtis felt the telltale warmth seeping into the rubber
down his throat. At the same time, he heard the strangled grunt that
Corey emitted as his body stiffened in the throes of climax, and he
knew his turn was almost here. He worked his throat muscles around
Corey’s cock, milking him for every drop of jism in his balls. When
Corey had spewed all of his jizz in that rubber, and his body had
relaxed, Curtis backed off him, leaving his rapidly shrinking cock
exposed to the air.
Corey pulled the rubber off and tied off the end, while Curtis
made sure he was properly protected. Then he said, “I want you on
your hands and knees.”
“Don’t you want me to suck you off?” Corey asked.
“Yes. Very much I do. But even more, I want to fuck you. So
we’ll have to save the suck-off for another time.”
“Do you have K-Y in your pocket, too,” he asked, “or do we need
to go upstairs?”
“No to both. We can do it the old-fashioned way.”
Corey presented his ass to Curtis, and he spit heartily onto
Corey’s puckered hole. Then Curtis slipped a finger within the grip of
Corey’s sphincter and worked the glob of spit all around his wrinkled
muscle. As he lubed, he loosened, and finally Curtis deemed him
ready for his assault.
“Ready or not,” he warned.
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Diana Sheridan
“Oh, I’m ready.”
“Then here I come.” Curtis positioned his seething dick at the
entrance to Corey’s ass. He gave one short jab of his hips, and his
dickhead popped through his sphincter and found itself lodged within
the grasp of his clenching, clutching muscle.
“Mmmmmmm,” Corey purred.
“Mmmm-hmmmm,” Curtis echoed. Then he grunted as he shoved
forward, and Corey echoed his grunt as Curtis hit bottom, bouncing
his balls off Corey’s butt cheeks. For the next few minutes Curtis
fucked him deep, driving his demanding dick into Corey’s churning,
twisting ass. For his part, Corey bucked underneath him like an
untamed stallion trying to lose a bronco-breaker. Curtis hung on for
the ride of his life.
Soon he felt the buzz in his balls that signaled impending climax.
“Gonna give it you, guy. Gonna shoot you full of my spunk,” he
warned. “Get ready, ’cause I’m almost—I’m gonna—I’m…” And
then he couldn’t talk or think coherently. The buzz that had been
ricocheting through his balls seemed to have relocated in his head. He
felt light-headed. And then he was aware that he was pouring copious
quantities of cum into the latex catcher buried up Corey’s ass.
Somewhere during his massive expulsion of jism, he became
aware, as if from a distance, that Corey, too, was spewing another
load.
They collapsed together on the carpet, hugging each other and
then nearly falling asleep. Just before they really drifted off, Curtis
came back to life and said, “Why don’t you stay the night? We can
listen to music, get to know each other better, and spend the night
together—and then, in the morning…” He raised his eyebrows
leeringly, à la Groucho, and Corey laughed appreciatively.
But he also nodded assent emphatically, and that was just what
they did—music, conversation, sleep, sex, and all. And breakfast, too.
Better days were ahead. Curtis was sure of it. They were off to a great
start. What could go wrong?
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
27
Chapter 2
They made a date for that Friday, when they planned to go to
Benny’s Bar-B-Q for ribs. Since Curtis had said he had no issue with
others drinking in his presence, and since he’d told Corey he was fine
ordering a nonalcoholic drink to be companionable, Corey had
suggested they start the evening before dinner with drinks at
Questions first. “Have you ever been there?” he asked.
“Just a couple of times,” Curtis said. “A guy I dated a few times
was a real pool expert, not a shark but damn good, and he said that
was a good place to go and shoot pool. I went with him to cheer him
on—although you can’t really cheer loudly. It’s too distracting to the
players. I know Questions is the local hangout, and practically
everyone goes there, but being a nondrinker, I’m the exception.”
“If it makes you uncomfortable….” Corey started, but Curtis cut
him off.
“Not at all. It’s very considerate of you to ask, but I have no
problem going there with you. Do you play pool, too?”
Corey laughed. “If you would see my pitiful attempts to shoot
pool, you wouldn’t ask. No, I don’t, but I’m semidecent at darts, and
they’ve just added a second dartboard, so there’s not such a terrible
wait to play. I don’t suppose you play darts?”
“No, but I can be your cheering section. Sure. What time do you
want to get together?”
“Suppose I meet you at Questions at four thirty. We can have a
couple of drinks—iced tea or Pepsi or whatever you want, and
something a little stronger for me—sit and talk, and I can play a few
games of darts. Then we’ll meander over to Benny’s Bar-B-Q
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Diana Sheridan
whenever we feel like it. They don’t take reservations anyhow. And
then back to your house? Or would you rather come to mine this
time?”
“My house will be fine. Bring a toothbrush.”
“I already bought one to keep there.”
Curtis smiled quietly to himself.
But on Friday, a little after one o’clock, Curtis’s phone rang, and
the caller ID showed him it was Corey. Is he calling to cancel? The
thought worried him, and he momentarily considered not answering.
But if Corey was calling to cancel, he would only leave a message if
Curtis didn’t answer, so reluctantly he punched the send button on his
cell and answered, “This is Curtis.”
“I’m absolutely stuck on this book,” said a very frustrated-
sounding Corey without any preamble, not a “hello” or a “how are
you?”
“I’m ready to blow off the afternoon and do something fun. How
about you? Are you in a position to play hooky?”
“Ummm….” Curtis stopped to think. “I have to get some
packages over to the post office. Outgoing orders. That’s a must. But
yeah, I guess I could take them over now and forget about working
the rest of the afternoon. I could put in some time over the weekend to
make up for it. That’s the nice thing about being self-employed.
Well—one of the nice things.”
“Great. Do you want to go fishing?”
“Sure. But then I’ll want to come home and change clothes before
we go out for the evening. I don’t want to go to Questions or Benny’s
smelling of fish.”
“Well, we can be flexible. If we’re having a good day fishing, we
can forget our original plans and just bring the fish home and cook
them. If we don’t catch a dinner’s worth, we can come home and
change clothes and then go to Questions and Benny’s like we
originally planned.”
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
29
“Sounds workable,” Curtis agreed. “Where do you want to meet?
Give me about half an hour.”
“Down by the dock at the inlet. Okay?”
“Okay. See you there.” See? You worried for nothing! Hanging
up, he put aside the toy he’d been assembling, decided the clothes he
was wearing would do to fish in, and picked up the pile of packages
that was sitting on a worktable. Part of his fishing gear was upstairs,
in a closet in his workout room, and he picked it up on the way out.
The rest was already in the trunk of his car.
Corey had arrived and was waiting at the dock when Curtis got
there. They greeted each other with a quick, brushing kiss and a one-
armed hug. Corey’s line was in the water. “Any nibbles?” Curtis
asked.
“Naaah. I think the fish all knew I was coming and hightailed it
for Savannah.”
“Now, there’s a mixed metaphor!”
“What are you, an English teacher?” Corey cuffed him on the
shoulder.
“Fish don’t hightail.”
“Next you’ll be wanting to edit my manuscript.” At the mention
of the book-in-progress, though—the one that wasn’t progressing very
well at all—the smile faded from his face.
“It’s just writer’s block,” Curtis said reassuringly, squeezing
Corey’s arm. “Most writers get it from time to time. You’ll work your
way out of it. I’m sure. After all, you wrote one book already—and
sales are going well.”
At the mention of his first book, Stop Squandering Your Life!
Corey smiled again, but unfortunately, that encouragement was the
best thing the couple “caught” all afternoon. At one point, Corey felt a
strong tug on his line, but when he pulled it up, there was nothing
there. And Curtis, using one of his own best homemade lures, caught
nothing, either. At a little after four, hot, sweaty, and discouraged,
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Diana Sheridan
they agreed to pack it in. “I still want to shower and change clothes.
I’m still sweaty even though I’m not fishy,” Curtis said.
“Me, too,” Corey agreed. So they each drove back home,
showered, got into fresh clothes, and then Corey picked up Curtis and
they drove to Questions.
Corey ordered a tequila, while Curtis decided on a simple glass of
club soda. “You’re a cheap date,” Corey kidded him. They sat at a
back table, away from most of the hubbub but close to the dartboards.
Corey put his name in to play the winner of the next game at the new
dartboard. Someone was already ahead of him to play the winner of
the current game. That gave them a chance to sit and talk and sip their
drinks while they waited.
“I have several speeches coming up,” Corey told Curtis. “Will you
be there as my cheering section?”
“Count on me. As long as I don’t have to give any speeches
myself. As long as all I have to do is cheer.”
“One isn’t local. It’s in Cedarvale. That’s about two and a quarter
hours away. I was thinking that instead of driving home all that far
late at night, I’d book us a room at the Cedarvale Inn, and we’ll make
an excursion out of it. How does that sound to you? The inn has two
swimming pools, indoor and outdoor, and we can drive around and
see whatever sights there are, then do the speech and then come back
to the inn, and I’m sure we can think of something to do when we get
back to the room.” He gave the Groucho leer again. “In the morning
we’ll try to find someplace interesting to eat breakfast, and then we
can hit the road. I think the checkout time at the inn is eleven a.m. We
can eat lunch along the way if we like. Maybe we’ll find someplace
intriguing. Or maybe we’ll even stay over two nights. We’ll figure it
out later, but the speech is coming up fast. It’s in three weeks. You
say you’re in?”
“Yup.”
“Good!” Corey leaned over and squeezed Curtis’s hand.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
31
Just then, a fellow over at the dartboard called to Corey, “Hey!
You’ve got the winner? You’re up!”
The couple rose from the table and strode to the darts area. As
they approached, Corey called out, “Who am I playing?”
A curly blond-haired fellow in jeans and a chambray shirt stuck
his hand out and said, “Ted.”
“Corey.” They shook hands. “And this is Curtis—my cheering
section.”
Ted extended a hand toward Curtis as well, and they shook also.
The contest began, and Corey did respectably, with Curtis shyly
cheering him on, but in the end Ted bested him ably. “Good game,
man,” Corey said, sticking out his hand for another shake. “Thanks.”
“You, too—good game, and thanks. You were a worthy opponent.
I enjoyed it.” Ted flashed a broad smile at both of them and clapped
Corey on the shoulder. Then Ted turned around and called out,
“Okay, who’s got the winner? Whoever you are, you’re up,” and
Corey and Curtis made their way back to their table.
Over their drinks, and over a second round, Corey told Curtis just
why he enjoyed giving public speeches. “Of course, I enjoy the actual
speech itself, being up there in front of people and all, as hard as that
must be for you to understand”—and he flashed Curtis a sympathetic
smile—“but even more than that, I like thinking that maybe my
speeches really help some of the people I’m talking to. Just like I feel
about my books. It’s not just about earning money or being well-
known—I wouldn’t call myself really famous—or any of that stuff.
It’s not even about enjoying the writing process, although I do—most
of the time, except when I’ve got writer’s block, like now. I genuinely
enjoy helping people. I think both my books and my speeches really
make an impact on at least some of the people who read the books or
hear the talks. I like to think I’ve really helped people make
something more out of their lives. It’s like my life-coaching sessions,
except that I’m reaching a lot of people at once. It’s a pretty cool
feeling.”
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Diana Sheridan
He went on to talk further about his work, and Curtis saw just how
truly passionate Corey was about it. This wasn’t just about earning a
living—it was really his life’s calling. He was a man with a mission.
Curtis respected and admired Corey all the more as he realized the
depths of Corey’s love for his work and for using it to help as many
people as he could.
“But I’m hogging the conversation. Surely you love your work,
too. Tell me more about it.”
“I do love it, but not with the depths of passion I’m hearing in
your voice and seeing in your eyes.”
“You’re just being modest.”
“No, not just modest—honest. I love working with my hands, I
love creating things, and I love using my imagination. And working
on my own has a lot of advantages, from avoiding uncomfortable
situations to having the freedom to come and go as I please, as long as
I get my work done and fill my orders. If I were working in
someone’s office, I wouldn’t have been able to come out and meet
you at the dock in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. There’s
a lot to be said for what I do, and I wouldn’t trade. I think that even if
I suddenly woke up tomorrow and my shyness was gone by magic,
I’d still stick with my present career. I truly enjoy it. But I can’t claim
to have the same passion for it that you have for your work. I like
knowing I’m bringing delight to children’s lives and pleasure to
fishermen, too, but I’m not helping anyone on the scale you are.”
“I didn’t know kids today were still into those old-fashioned toys.
It’s good to know that.”
“Well, of course, kids that young don’t buy the toys themselves.
Their parents do, and I suspect a lot of my orders come from
grandparents, also. They remember the toys of their childhood. Kind
of a memory-lane trip for them.”
The conversation went on as they sipped their second drinks, and
then, as they both were nearing the bottoms of their respective
glasses, Corey looked at his watch and pointed out, “It’s gotten past
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
33
six o’clock already. What do you say we head over to Benny’s Bar-B-
Q and dig into those ribs?”
“Suits me,” said Curtis laconically, downing the last of his club
soda and setting the glass back down. “Let’s hit the road.”
It wasn’t that far a drive to Benny’s, where they found there was a
wait for a table. “Care for something from the bar while you’re
waiting?” the hostess asked.
“We already did that, thanks,” Corey replied.
Fortunately, a table became available not long thereafter. The two
of them decided to share their dinner between them and order one
serving of baby backs with Asian sauce and one serving of Kansas
City-style spareribs, one order of onion rings and one order of french-
fried sweet potatoes, one order of broccoli slaw and one order of
barbecue beans, and iced tea. Then they sat back to talk some more
while they waited for their food.
When the waitress brought their dinner, she asked, “Who gets
what?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re sharing everything,” Corey answered.
She set down an empty red plastic basket. “For the bones,” she
said. “Can I get you anything else?”
“We’re good,” said Corey.
“I’ll be back to check if you need anything later,” she said perkily
and sashayed away from the table.
Watching her gait, Corey commented, “She must have just started
her shift. She’s way too zippy to have tired feet.”
“You’re in a good mood, too, for a man who didn’t catch any
fish,” Curtis observed.
“I’m with you!” was Corey’s explanation.
Curtis liked it.
Although Curtis found it hard to credit, they polished off
everything but one onion ring, two french-fried sweet potatoes, and a
very little bit of the broccoli slaw. There wasn’t a morsel of meat left
on the thoroughly gnawed and denuded ribs, nor a single barbecued
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Diana Sheridan
bean. There certainly wasn’t enough of anything left to warrant a
doggie bag. Curtis felt as though he would have to waddle to get out
to the car, and they both agreed they were too full for immediate sex.
“But I enjoy spending time with you anyhow,” Corey said, which
once again, as with his “I’m with you” remark earlier, warmed
Curtis’s heart.
Corey asked for a tour of Curtis’s basement workshop, which he
hadn’t seen previously, and Curtis was only too glad to show him
around. Proudly, he displayed the lures, the toys, and the various tools
he used in plying his trade.
“Don’t you feel isolated, being down in a basement all day?”
Corey asked him.
Curtis pointed to the networked laptop computer in the corner on a
small desk. “I check e-mail frequently. I have a fair number of e-
friends. I’m not so shy by e-mail,” he said. Then he pointed to a stereo
in another corner. “All the comforts of home. There’s even a half bath
down here.” He pointed to a door off to one side. “If I need to pee, or
whatever, I don’t have to trudge up the stairs. Of course, I get less
exercise than if I had to go upstairs to use the bathroom.”
“I’d say you get exercise enough from the look of it—but then, I
do remember you have a home gym. And I take it you use it
diligently.”
“At least three serious workouts a week, and more often five, and
sometimes I do a short workout on other days.”
“That’s dedication.”
“Speaking of workouts, how long till you’re ready for me to give
you a real workout?”
“Well, I’m still pretty full, but we could fool around a little till
we’re both ready for something more serious.”
So they went upstairs, closed the blinds, proceeded to the second
floor, and got undressed. Then they dressed their dicks for action in
latex. Curtis’s dick was at half-mast, and Corey wrapped his succulent
lips around that half-hard cock and roughly laved the surface with the
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
35
scrapy bumps on his tongue. Curtis squirmed as a rush of heat
suffused his body in the wake of that serpentine tongue doing its
magic.
Then Corey tightened his grip and turned up the suction. His lips,
compressed tightly around Curtis’s raging stalk, began their up-and-
down ride. Gliding swift and smooth, they eased their way down to
his balls, where Corey stopped to inhale a deep lungful of the
pheromones wafting up from Curtis’s groin.
When he took a breath, Curtis felt the suction ease up. He reacted
by thrusting toward him. Again Corey eased up on sucking, and again
Curtis reacted by punching his hips upward and thrusting his stiff dick
down farther into Corey’s gullet, past his uvula, as far down as he
could go.
Corey tightened his lip-lock on Curtis and got a good grip on his
dick. Then he started fluttering his tongue against the underside of
Curtis’s shaft as he vacuum-sucked. Upping the ante, he palmed
Curtis’s sweaty balls. Cupping them, he squeezed gently but
insistently, as if by doing so he could hasten the unloading of Curtis’s
creamy jizz.
Curtis bucked upward sharply, thumping his taut buns hard
against the bed each time he lowered them, only to heft them upward
again to propel his steel-stiff cock deep into the gulping mouth of his
new lover. From the blissed-out look on Corey’s face, it appeared he
was enjoying sucking Curtis every bit as much as Curtis was enjoying
being sucked.
Every time Curtis settled into a rhythm, Corey deliberately threw
him off course by changing it. When Curtis had settled into his
zipping up and down his shaft rapidly, Corey changed gears and
instituted a languid suck, lolling his tongue around Curtis’s sensitized
dickhead with every upstroke. And when Curtis settled into that
rhythm, Corey switched on him again, zipping downward with a fast,
sharp motion, only to let his lips amble upward on the return trip at a
devastatingly slow pace.
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Clearly he was trying to make the encounter last, and he was
succeeding. But Curtis thought he’d go out of his mind with want.
Besides, he wanted something more than just to sperm Corey’s gullet.
He wanted his own chance at sucking. He wanted to vacuum-suck the
roiling jizz from Curtis’s balls. He wanted to feel the pulsations of his
spending dick as it jettisoned his sperm into the rubber in Curtis’s
mouth.
So Curtis urged him, “Stop teasing! Get me off! Please!”
“Sex wasn’t meant to be rushed through. Now stop making me
talk. If I have to answer you, it means I have to stop sucking.” And he
returned to devouring Curtis’s thick dick, swooping down on it so fast
that his nose crashed into Curtis’s pubic bone. But he did worm a
hand under Curtis’s butt and slither a squirmy finger up inside his
clenching ass.
As Curtis felt Corey’s probing finger make its way north up his
ass, he started groaning loudly. With his other hand, Corey began
tracing Curtis’s upper and lower lips. Snagging one of his fingers into
Curtis’s mouth, which was easy with his hand right there, he sucked it
in as avidly as if it were Corey’s dick.
And from Corey’s reaction, it might as well have been. He
groaned even louder than Curtis had and began punching his hips
forward in a vertical mating dance. He looked as if he were fucking
the air, the way he jabbed sharply forward as Curtis’s mouth did to his
finger what it wanted to do to his dick.
And still, Curtis’s marauding dick drove in and out of his mouth.
Curtis took control now. It was no longer a case of Corey’s sucking
him off. Now Curtis was fucking his mouth. He chugged in with hard-
charging strokes, drilling far into his throat, plunging his erection
deep down his gulping gullet.
And then Curtis felt his searing sperm getting ready to spill over.
Up and out it jetted, his balls compressing as his jizz boiled up and
steamed its way into the rubber. He stiffened, thrusting his groin
against Corey’s face and mashing Corey’s nose with his pubic bone.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
37
Doggedly he sucked, vacuuming Curtis harder than ever as he
demanded every last sperm that lurked in his balls. Corey wasn’t
going to let Curtis’s balls hold back by one single seed.
When at last he was convinced he had every last drop of Curtis’s
sperm, he began to fist his already-rubbered dick. “Get your hands
off! That’s mine to pleasure!” Curtis insisted at the sight of Corey’s
hand sliding up and down his spit-glistening shaft.
Demandingly pushing Corey’s hand away, Curtis dived down on
his knobby cock and engulfed it in his hungry maw. Corey ceded
ownership of his dick to him and let Curtis do with it as he wanted.
What Curtis wanted was to suck long and hard and insistently.
Corey was hot, already worked up from sucking on Curtis and
from Curtis’s sucking on his finger. He lunged upward as if trying to
propel his body toward the ceiling, and he drove his dick fiercely into
the warm, steamy confines of Curtis’s gullet.
As Curtis’s lips encircled Corey’s raging hard-on even tighter, he
returned the favor Corey’s finger had done for him and intruded his
own finger up into Corey’s ass. Squirming and probing, he tickled the
anal walls and felt his sphincter’s clench tighten on his probing finger.
Corey was going wild now, gasping and moaning, flailing like a
landed flounder.
Curtis still had a free hand, so he put it to good use by titillating
Corey’s nipples. Squeezing and pinching, he teased those stiff, tender
nubbins with his fingers and brought his new boyfriend to a raging
boil in no time. “Gonna come!” Corey gasped, but even as he said it,
he was already spraying his cream into the rubber lodged deep in
Curtis’s gullet.
Curtis felt Corey’s pumping dick dislodge his sperm, as blast after
blast of steaming seed splatted thickly into the latex. Then his dick
began to rapidly shrivel, and Curtis opened his mouth to release him
before the rubber could fall off and spill its contents.
“I thought you were too full for sex yet,” Corey teased when he
got his breathing back to something approximating normal.
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“You’re too hot to ignore,” Curtis replied. “I can’t keep my hands
off you—or my mouth, either.”
“You’ll have to behave yourself if you’re going to attend my
speeches.” Corey wagged a cautionary finger at Curtis.
“When is the next one coming up, anyhow?”
“In two weeks.”
“Where?”
“The banquet hall at Rosalie’s Rumpus Room.”
“I’m really eager to hear you give one of your speeches.”
“You’ll have your chance in two weeks.”
By the night of the speech, Curtis and Corey had had seven more
dates and were pretty firmly cemented as a couple. As they sat in the
hall, eating the typical “rubber chicken dinner,” Corey consulted his
watch to see if it was close to the time he was to take the stage. Curtis
noticed the watch for the first time. It was gold, heavy, and expensive
looking. When he commented on it, Corey smiled. “It was a present
from my dad when I went into life coaching. He was very proud of
me. He said I’d need to make sure I was on time for all my
appointments, and the watch would help. He died a few years later,
which made the watch even more valuable to me. It’s intrinsically
valuable to begin with. It’s not a cheap watch! But the fact that it was
the last significant gift—and the most significant gift—that I ever got
from my dad is what really makes it meaningful to me.
“So you wear it only on special occasions—like this?”
“No. I wear it every day. It gives me the feeling my father is close
to me. You just didn’t notice it before.”
“You do have other features that are more compelling,” Curtis
observed drily.
They got through their dinners with some difficulty. To begin
with, the food, typical for such a banquet, was uninspiring. “If
Rosalie’s catered this themselves, Rosalie ought to be ashamed of
herself,” Corey commented.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
39
“We ought to find out if she did or if the food was brought in from
outside, and if so, who catered it? Just to make sure we never hire
whoever it is.”
“Planning a party?” Corey teased.
“When your book sells its millionth copy, we’ll want to
celebrate.” Curtis wasn’t teasing. He was dead-on serious.
“That’s a nice thought. Hold on to it,” Corey answered, chucking
Curtis under the chin.
The other reason dinner was a struggle, besides the quality of the
food, was their nervousness. Of the two, Curtis was decidedly the
more nervous, even though he wasn’t the one giving the speech.
Corey was somewhat on edge, which was usual for him before a talk,
but Curtis was almost as freaked as if he were the one who was about
to be called to the dais.
As the dessert plates and coffee cups were cleared away, the
evening’s master of ceremonies took to the microphone, made a few
perfunctory remarks, and then introduced “this evening’s
extraordinary guest speaker.” He went on to give a bit of background
on him, and raised the volume of his voice to a feverish level as he
wound up with, “And so I give you the author of Stop Squandering
Your Life!, a man many of you know already and all of you will enjoy
listening to. I think we can all derive a great deal of benefit from his
words. Corey Atwood!”
As Corey ascended to the dais, there was no more thunderous
applause than that which came from Curtis, who cupped his hands as
he clapped in order to get maximum volume out of his applause.
Unabashed in his partisanship and admiration, he made no secret of
his adoration. After all, this was gay-friendly Surfspray, where no one
would look askance at a male couple openly expressing their
devotion. And now, a month into the relationship, the couple had
grown very close.
Curtis had not heard Corey speak in public before, and the
evening was a revelation for him. He had taken it on faith that the
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man he had grown so fond of, who had also written a strongly
motivational book—Curtis had long since read a copy of Stop
Squandering Your Life! at Corey’s house—could speak eloquently
and persuasively. Still, actually hearing him do so was astounding.
Corey was a masterful speaker, using his voice like an instrument and
finely honing his words, though for shy Curtis, the most amazing and
admirable part was simply Corey’s ability to stand up and give a
speech at all.
In fact, after Corey finished his forty minutes on the dais and
resumed his seat—to huge applause—Curtis’s tribulations began in
earnest. The evening’s master of ceremonies said a few words, which
included a thank-you to Corey, and then he thanked everyone for
coming, effectively ending the evening, but not all the attendees left.
Quite a few flocked to Corey, and some of them spoke to Curtis, too.
There had been no Q&A session, but some people had questions
and expressed these to Corey now. Others merely wanted to
compliment him and tell him how much they had enjoyed his talk.
Still, others wanted to know when his next book would be out and
what the topic would be. And while waiting their turn to talk to him,
some of these people addressed Curtis. “How long have you two been
together?” “Are you a writer, too?” “Do you write motivational
books, too?” “How does it feel to be with a well-known author?” “Do
you help Corey write his books?” Those were only some of the
questions he got.
Curtis squirmed and fidgeted under the onslaught of inquiries. All
these unfamiliar people pelting him with questions! Curtis tried to
deflect as many of them as he could but finally made his way to the
men’s room, not because he really needed to use it but just to get
away from the crowd.
The next day, a Sunday, the couple decided to go to the duck
pond. Corey would bring one of his model boats to sail and another
for Curtis to have fun with. Curtis had never sailed a model boat
before, so he was looking forward to the experience.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
41
They went to the water’s edge and set the boats into the pond.
Cloudy weather minimized the number of people there despite its
being a Sunday, but several kids and adults, too, crowded around
when Corey set his sleek model into the water. Off to their left,
another small group was more interested in the ducks than the boats
and was watching as a twentysomething-looking young woman with a
giant loaf of bread fed the ducks happily. It was hard to tell who
seemed to be enjoying themselves more—the woman or the ducks or
the several small children who watched in delight. Although the ducks
would not take the bread from the young woman’s hand, they
approached quite closely and snatched it off the ground as she threw it
a very short distance away.
One little boy, apparently wanting to get a better look or perhaps
just a different vantage point, went up onto the nearby footbridge and
then, leaning over the railing, dropped something into the water,
calling, “Here, ducks. Here, ducks. Here, ducks.” The ducks ignored
him completely. He leaned over farther. “Here, ducks. Here, ducks.
Here, ducks.” But still the ducks ignored him. He leaned still farther.
And then…splash!
The splash attracted everyone’s attention, but in the split second
that followed the boy’s falling in, it seemed only Corey took action.
Fully clad and shod, he jumped into the water and swam toward the
boy, who was flailing in the water. Corey didn’t even stop to remove
his good watch. He just jumped in and swam.
It was November, and a cool enough day even in the South that he
was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, not a T-shirt, and khaki pants, not
shorts. Curtis, watching him with his heart in his mouth, saw that he
was having difficulty swimming with all that clothing, and shoes, too.
All Curtis could think to do was pray. Fortunately, someone nearby,
able to think more clearly, dialed 911. Curtis heard the woman talking
into her cell phone, reporting the emergency to the operator.
Meanwhile, the young boy had disappeared under the water.
Corey, reaching the spot where the boy had last been visible, dived
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down underwater but came up a minute later empty-handed. Taking a
deep breath, he dived down again, remaining down so long that Curtis
was petrified, but finally he came up with his right arm under the
boy’s arms.
Curtis uttered a quick prayer of thanks and ran to the part of the
shoreline where Corey was headed. The rest of the assemblage
followed him. When Corey got to shore, he dragged the boy up with
him and immediately began artificial respiration.
The boy had just spit out water and begun to breathe when the
paramedics arrived and took over. Curtis wasn’t sure if the huge cheer
that went up was for Corey’s efforts or the paramedics’ arrival, but he
knew who he was cheering for!
Corey was chilled and exhausted. “Get the boats. I need to get
home,” he told Curtis. Although reluctant to leave Corey’s side,
Curtis did as requested and gathered the boats, then brought them to
Corey’s car. The two piled in. Curtis drove.
When they got back to Corey’s place, he went straight to the
bathroom to get out of his wet clothes and into a hot shower. Curtis,
by now familiar with Corey’s house, went into the kitchen to make a
cup of hot tea for his chilled lover. As he was removing the tea bag
from the steeped tea, the doorbell rang. “Are you out of the shower?”
he called to Corey. Getting no answer, he trotted to the front door and
opened it himself.
On the front stoop were three people. One, a man, carried a video
camera. The other two, both women, each carried a notepad and a
tape recorder. Curtis recognized one of the two women. She was
Sharon Buchholz, a reporter for one of the local TV stations. The
other woman introduced herself as Alexa Rodriguez, a reporter for the
Surfspray Siren.
“Is Corey Atwood available?” Alexa asked.
“News travels fast,” observed Curtis, stepping aside reluctantly.
He didn’t relish the thought of having to talk to these people till Corey
was available. “Come in. He’s in the shower.”
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
43
“May I ask, for the record, are you a friend?” Sharon asked.
“You could say that.” Curtis felt the heat of discomfort suffusing
his cheeks as the reporter questioned him.
“Boyfriend?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“How does it feel to know your other half is a hero?” Sharon
asked as the camera rolled.
“I was terribly scared when he dived in the water with all his
clothes on, and relieved and very proud when he saved the boy and
got safely back to shore. But I must say,” Curtis interjected in a rare
moment of bravery overcoming his shyness, “that ‘other half’
business? I never liked it. I believe we each have to be complete,
whole. Corey complements me, but he doesn’t complete me.”
Looking at Alexa, the print reporter, he specified, “That’s
‘complement’ with an e. Not an i. I seriously believe we all have to
complete ourselves.”
“Are you in love with Corey?” Alexa wasn’t reluctant to ask
personal questions.
“Yes, I am,” said Curtis, saying it for the first time.
“And I love Curtis.” That was the first that Curtis—or any of
them, apparently—was aware that Corey had joined them. It was also
the first time Corey had declared his love for Curtis.
Curtis had one more question before ceding the spotlight to Corey.
“Most important, any news on how the boy Corey rescued is doing?”
“The last report we got, he’s going to be fine. Full recovery
expected.” Sharon smiled as she delivered the news.
After that, the reporters were all over Corey, and Curtis happily let
him take center stage.
They watched the six o’clock news later that evening and got to
see themselves on TV. Corey, as an author, had been on TV before,
but Curtis never had, and it was exciting for him to see both of them
on the screen. Naturally, their declarations of love didn’t make the
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cut, but Curtis kept replaying Corey’s affirmation of love for him over
and over in his mind.
When their segment was over, they left to go out for dinner. They
had originally planned on eating at home, but between the events at
the pond and then the unexpected arrival of the news reporters, their
plans went out the window. They debated having seafood at Down by
the Shore but finally settled on wings at Rosie’s Roost. Still all keyed
up, they ate quickly even though there was no need to hurry and no
reason to rush. As they drove home, Corey spotted the first Christmas
lights of the season. Halloween had been just a week earlier.
“Somebody’s rushing the season.”
“I already got my Christmas present when you got out of the duck
pond safely,” Curtis said. “I guess I’m in love with a real live hero.”
That marked the second time now that he had used the L-word.
“I’m still just me,” Corey said with a short laugh. “Honestly, I
can’t even take credit for deciding to rescue the kid. I never even
thought about it. Maybe if I had, I would have at least taken off the
watch first.”
The watch, now a useless hunk of nonworking gold, was no
longer functional.
“Can’t you get it repaired somewhere?”
“I don’t know, but I doubt it. Maybe I can get it melted down and
made into two commitment rings for us.”
Those words brought a shiver of delight to Curtis.
They didn’t even make love that night. They were too emotionally
wrung out. But they did spend the night together, and they clung
together all night long.
They were still entwined when Curtis woke up. Thinking of the
day’s work he had planned, he knew he would have to go back home
after breakfast, but now more than ever, he hated to leave Corey.
When Corey woke up, he expressed the same sentiments but agreed
that work was a necessity. And while Curtis faced deadlines for
commitments to deliver locally and ship out-of-area both toys and
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
45
lures, which was compelling enough, Corey had actual appointments.
He had three clients booked for the day, the first at eight-thirty. They
would have to get their acts together now. There was not even time to
make love.
Curtis sighed as he ducked under the covers to kiss Corey’s dick.
Then he came back out from under the covers and asked, “Do you
take rain checks?”
“Always,” said Corey, rumpling Curtis’s already bed-messed hair.
They downed a quick breakfast of grapefruit juice, bagels, and
coffee, and then Curtis reluctantly headed home. But they saw each
other nine of the next eleven nights. Then came Friday morning. They
would be driving to Cedarvale that afternoon.
Corey had booked a room for the two of them for two nights at the
Cedarvale Inn. He was to give his speech on Saturday evening. Unlike
the previous speech, this one didn’t involve a banquet but did include
a back-of-the-room bookselling opportunity after the talk. As a result,
the trunk of his car was filled with cartons of Stop Squandering Your
Life! In the backseat were two overnighters, small suitcases with a
couple of changes of clothes for each, swimsuits, since the Cedarvale
Inn boasted an indoor pool, and whatever other necessities they
required for the trip. Lying across the top of the suitcases was a nice
suit in a garment bag for Corey to wear for his speech.
Neither of them had been to the Cedarvale Inn before. It was well
known in their part of the state, and so both of them had heard of it,
but neither one had actually set foot in it. On pulling up at the front
entrance, they were immediately surprised by the size. The name
“Inn” had suggested to both of them a cozy, intimate venue, but the
Cedarvale Inn was much larger than either had expected. Most of the
building was three stories but stretched into a wide semicircle. At
either end, however, the building rose seven stories, in what were
known as the East Tower and the West Tower. In the middle of the
semicircle were an outdoor swimming pool and, closer to the
building, an indoor, glassed-in pool.
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At this time of year, even in the southern climes of Carolina, it
wasn’t outdoor swimming weather, but the indoor pool had an
outdoors feel to it, thanks to the glass on three sides and the roof.
Corey and Curtis had been given an interior room, overlooking the
two pools, on the sixth floor of the West Tower. The interior rooms,
with their pool views, were, in Curtis’s opinion, preferable to the
exterior ones. Those overlooked the tree-lined walkways around the
inn or, at the front, the entrance, which surely wasn’t much of a view
at all.
There was no one in the pool now, but Corey said, “We’ll be there
later. You did bring a swimsuit, didn’t you?”
“Yup. You told me about the indoor pool. I’m prepared.”
When it came to sex, “prepared” these days did not include
rubbers. Both men had gotten themselves tested and were negative.
They had dispensed with latex in their love life and were happily
engaging in bareback sex with absolute assurance. Curtis was certain
that Corey was faithful, and he himself was surely not about to cheat
on Corey, either.
Having checked in, gone to their room, and unpacked, they
headed down to the indoor pool, which they had to themselves. Not
another soul was in the pool or anywhere in sight. Noting their
solitude, Corey got frisky and began grabbing at Curtis’s crotch.
“Hey! Quit it! Someone will see!” Curtis protested.
“We’re alone. There’s no one to see us.”
“Try all the people in the towers. Glass ceiling, remember? We
could see the pool from our room. How do you know there’s nobody
looking down at us from one of those windows right now?”
“Ehhhh. I doubt it.” Corey made one last grab at Curtis’s crotch
and squeezed his dick before letting go, touching Curtis on the
shoulder, and swimming away quickly, calling, “Tag! You’re it!”
Laughing, Curtis swam after Corey, but Corey was the stronger
swimmer of the two and managed to keep ahead of Curtis at all times.
When Corey got to the deep end of the pool and turned to swim back
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
47
again, at a safe distance from Curtis, Curtis cut sideways and tried to
intercept Corey, but Corey outswam him, increasing his speed and
easily eluding his lover. When Corey reached the shallow end of the
pool once again, he stood up in the water and yelled, “Game over! I
win!”
“Who said the game’s over?” protested Curtis, pulling up
alongside Corey, standing up, and proceeding to splash his lover with
water.
“Hey! Hey!” Corey protested.
At that, Curtis tried to de-pants Corey, yanking his swimsuit down
while Corey struggled vainly to keep the suit up. “Truce!” he yelled
finally. “We really don’t know who’s watching.”
They embraced as they stood there, and thumped each other’s
back as they hugged. Then they let go of each other and began
swimming without purpose, simply enjoying the water as they glided
through it without any goal or intention. They tried the crawl, the
backstroke, the sidestroke, and the plain old dog paddle, until they
had tired of swimming and Corey’s stomach reminded him that it
must be getting close to dinnertime. “What do you say we get dressed
and have a bite to eat?” he suggested.
Curtis and Corey swam to the shallow end, climbed out, retrieved
their terry robes, and went back up to their rooms, where they
showered off the chlorine and got dressed. There was an
independently owned restaurant adjacent to the inn. It offered plain
American food, which didn’t particularly tempt either Corey or
Curtis, but neither of them felt like driving around trying to find
something more intriguing and then taking a chance that the food
would be any good. So they agreed to take the line of least resistance
and go to the restaurant next to the inn.
To look over the dining area, Cedarvale’s Table, as the restaurant
was called, was doing a brisk business, but there were still a few
tables vacant, so the couple didn’t have to wait. Perusing the menu,
Curtis decided on the stuffed pork chops, which came with garlic
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smashed potatoes and cauliflower au gratin. As for Corey, he decided
he would have the chicken-fried steak, which came with home fries
and string beans.
They gave their orders to a waiter, declined his suggestion of a
drink before dinner, and then talked while they waited for their food.
“All ready for your big speech?” Curtis asked.
“I want to wow them so they buy lots of books afterward.”
“Are you getting paid for the speech, at least—in case they don’t
buy as many books as you’re hoping for?”
“More than just an honorarium but less than I would’ve liked.”
“Any idea how large an audience it’ll be?”
“They said to figure around two hundred.”
“Wow!” At the thought of standing up in front of two hundred
people and giving a speech, Curtis turned cold and felt his skin grow
clammy.
They talked a while longer, and their food arrived, after which
they fell silent and concentrated on eating. Curtis tucked into his
stuffed pork chops and found the meat perfectly done but the stuffing
inexplicably soggy. Corey proclaimed his chicken-fried steak “not
bad but hardly the best I’ve ever had.” Their vegetables and potatoes,
both agreed, were okay but nothing special.
Wanting something more satisfying, they agreed to have dessert.
The waiter recommended the hot apple pie. “It’s the specialty of the
house,” he said. “With raisins in it. We’re known for it.”
It wasn’t a bum steer. The two men agreed to try it, although
Curtis asked for his with vanilla ice cream and Corey his with a slice
of American cheese. Both agreed it was outstanding. “Why couldn’t
the rest of the dinner have been this good?” groused Corey.
“Just enjoy it,” advised Curtis.
After that large a dinner, they felt stuffed and agreed a walk would
be just the thing before returning to their room. Holding hands, they
strolled the tree-lined walkways surrounding the hotel and restaurant.
The moon was glowing, crescent and star-surrounded, in a deep
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
49
velvet sky, and the night air was mild. “Thanksgiving’s almost here,
and we haven’t made plans,” Curtis said.
“Let me cook the turkey for the two of us, and the stuffing and the
gravy, and you bring the sides. We can eat at my house. We don’t
need to invite anyone else. If I have you, that’s all I need,” Corey
said.
Curtis glowed inside and immediately agreed to the plan. “What
sides do you think I should bring?”
“One potato dish, one veggie, some cranberry sauce—you can get
canned—and maybe you want to bring a pie for dessert, too.”
“Sweet potato, pumpkin, or apple?”
“You decide. I love all of them—entirely too much.”
“How about the cranberry sauce? Jellied or whole berry?”
“I prefer the whole berry, but if you like the smooth kind, I’m
okay with that,” Corey said.
“Really? You sure?”
“Really. I’m sure.”
“Do we need anything else?”
“Sheesh! We’ll be eating all weekend on the leftovers as it is.
Hell, no! We do not need anything else. I plan to buy a huge turkey.
There’s a lot I can do with turkey leftovers. We’ll be working on them
right up till it’s time to roast the Christmas turkey.”
“Oh, do you do turkey for Christmas? I’m used to ham,” Curtis
said.
“We can do ham if you prefer.”
“We can do turkey if you prefer.”
Corey laughed. “We’ll fight over it later. Let’s get through T-Day
first.”
“Let’s get through tomorrow night’s speech first,” Curtis said.
They had made a grand circuit of the hotel and restaurant grounds
and were now back in front of the inn’s entrance. “Shall we go up?”
suggested Curtis.
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“I can think of something to do if we go upstairs.” Corey threw
Curtis a wink.
By the time they got up to their room, both men had anticipatory
hard-ons. Corey walked in the door of the hotel room prick-first. It
preceded the rest of him by several inches—and that was with his
pants still on. With his pants off, the sight was even more
magnificent. Curtis, who could never get enough of his lover’s loving,
or of the sight of him in all his nude glory, just stood and stared for a
few moments. Then he ducked into a crouch in front of Corey and
opened his mouth. It was a stretch to wrap his lips around that
magnificent dick, but wrap them he did.
As he slipped his lips around that huge, purplish, pulsating
dickhead, he pulled lightly at Corey’s coarse curlies with his fingers.
Corey reacted as if a lightning bolt had seared his raging cock. It
quivered in Curtis’s mouth, and Corey’s body stiffened. He was
obviously in a high state of arousal. Well, it had been three days since
they’d last made love, and Corey had a voracious sexual appetite.
Not wanting Corey to come off too quickly, Curtis relaxed his
lips’ grip on him. Letting that iron-stiff dick bounce wildly out of his
mouth, he took to nipping at his thicket of pubes instead. Corey
whimpered as Curtis’s lips deserted him. Curtis cautioned, “Whoa!
You’re too eager. I don’t want you getting off yet. Make it last.”
“Awwwwwww!” He sounded like a little boy who’d been told he
couldn’t have a lollipop. But Curtis was determined to make the
experience last, so he continued to avoid Corey’s dick and, instead,
nipped at his russet nipples. Stiff and puckered, they stood up firm
and rubbery, begging to be nibbled at.
They didn’t have to beg long. Latching on to one tempting finger
of flesh with his teeth, Curtis grazed the nubbin with the edges of his
front teeth. He was very careful not to hurt him, yet he let him know
those were teeth tantalizing his nips.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
51
Then he took his mouth away from Corey’s nipple. Quickly, he
wet his fuck-finger before attacking the other nipple. “What’re you
planning?” Corey asked eagerly.
“Just what you’re hoping for,” Curtis reassured him. “But let me
get these clothes off. You’re naked, and I’m dressed. Then let’s take
this action over to the bed.” Curtis undressed, joined Corey on the
bed, and quickly latched on to his other tit, gnawing at it and
simultaneously flicking at the sensitive nub with the raspy part of his
tongue.
Then he slid his sneaking finger under Corey’s butt and quickly
probed for his pucker. Finding it, he wormed his fuck-finger within
Corey’s anal sphincter and insinuated that finger up to the first joint in
the humid interior.
“Oh—yesssss,” Corey hissed, his wild eyes flashing in eager
anticipation. Curtis wriggled his finger deeper up Corey’s butt-
channel. Then his mouth descended on Corey’s quivering cock and
engulfed the whole thing in the wet warmth.
A different warmth surrounded Curtis’s questing finger—the
moist warmth of Corey’s ass. He crooked his finger and then began
wiggling it even as he dug deeper. Soon he connected with Corey’s
prostate, and as he hit the little gland, Corey let out a loud purr of
pleasure.
Curtis’s tongue laved the underside of Corey’s spongy cock as he
sucked up and down on his quivering flesh. Corey suddenly began
humping hard and fast. He was going to get off. There was no
denying him the pleasure now. Curtis ratcheted up the degree of
suction and cranked up the speed of his sliding lips simultaneously.
Emitting encouraging grunts as he sucked, he drove his finger fully
into Corey’s ass.
Corey erupted. His body stiffened as taut as an archer’s fully
drawn bow, quivered as if a thousand-volt charge were thrumming
through it, then strained upward as he jolted out a massive load of
boiling cum. His spurts steamed the inside of Curtis’s mouth. It
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seemed he was spraying an impossibly large splatter of thick jism.
Curtis squeezed Corey’s balls gently for good measure, and he
erupted again with another squeeze of thick, hot cream.
Curtis had planned ahead. He had packed lube for the trip and,
when they arrived and unpacked, he had put it in the night table
drawer. Now he pulled out his tube of K-Y and squirted a generous
dollop onto his dickhead. Then he rolled his now-limp lover over and
took aim.
Feeling Curtis’s dick poised at the portal of his butt, Corey yelped
in surprise but pulled his knees up under him eagerly to position
himself. Curtis eagerly plunged inward until Corey’s ass had
swallowed about a third of his cock into its hungry depths.
“Mmmmm!” Corey purred. Curtis reached around and pinched one of
his rubbery nipples again.
“Give me more. Stick it in farther!” he yelped. But he needn’t
have asked. Curtis was already threading more of his eager cock up
Corey’s chute. Then Curtis fed him still more inches. At last he was
balls-deep.
“Feels so good,” Corey said, moaning appreciatively. He sounded
breathless in his ecstasy. He began to chug his butt back and forth
beneath Curtis, ratcheting his body in time with Curtis’s rhythm.
Curtis fucked him with long, deep strokes, going as slowly as his own
excitement would permit him. For his part, Corey was a totally
enthusiastic partner. Curtis kept driving his cock deep into Curtis’s
ass over and over, until his breath began exhaling in little whimpers
and Curtis recognized that Corey was once again climbing to climax.
He lowered his mouth to Corey’s neck and bit his nape as a cur
would a bitch in an alley. “Arrrrgh!” Corey growled at the feel of
Curtis’s teeth on him. Curtis reached underneath him and once again
tweaked a nipple. Then he let go of the nipple and lowered his hand to
Corey’s dick.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
53
Curtis jacked him urgently, spurring him on to a fiery finale, and
the way his hips were chugging back and forth, Curtis knew it
wouldn’t be long before Corey gushed another load of his hot jizz.
It wasn’t going to be long for Curtis, either. He felt the cum
rumbling in his balls, gathering energy, and preparing to launch. Then
his balls drew up into his body cavity, and he plunged fully forward to
once again seat himself as deeply as he could in Corey’s hot ass. As
he thrust deep into his butthole, his balls delivered.
Corey yelped and fell flat on the bed, stiff as plywood in his
overpowering orgasm.
Curtis collapsed on top of him and kissed the nape of his neck.
Then he rolled off him, lying on his side, and Corey rolled onto his
side, facing him. They put their arms around each other and simply
snuggled for a while. Without intending to, they fell asleep that way.
Somewhere around two a.m., Curtis woke up, momentarily
disoriented. But the room lights were still on, so he quickly realized
where he was. Disentangling himself from Corey, he got up, turned
off the lights, ducked into the bathroom for a quick pee, and returned
to the bed. Corey stirred then and pulled the covers up over them.
Then they made their way back into each other’s arms and remained
snuggled together until morning.
The inn served a continental breakfast in the lobby, and the couple
went downstairs in the morning, making a breakfast of the inn’s
coffee and Danish pastry. There were also sausage patties, and Curtis
availed himself of two of those, although Corey declined. “Shall we
explore the area now?” Corey suggested. When they’d first planned
out the weekend and making a minivacation out of the trip to
Cedarvale, the couple had agreed that they’d first drive around the
area and sightsee before choosing any other specific activities. They
didn’t know what recreational opportunities Cedarvale offered. So
they got into the car and started exploring the various neighborhoods,
ranging farther and farther away from the inn as they drove aimlessly
with no specific goal, purpose, or destination in mind.
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When they came upon an ice-skating rink, Corey turned to Curtis
and said, “What do you think?”
“Not one of my skills, but I’m game to try.”
“Not one of my skills either. Shall we make asses of ourselves
together?”
“As long as you don’t fall down and break your arm right before
your speech.”
“Just so I don’t break my jaw!”
They rented skates and set out on the ice on very wobbly ankles.
Truth to tell, they spent more time on their butts than on their feet, but
they laughed and had a good time even when falling down. After an
hour, they were bruised and sore but not seriously injured, and they
decided they’d had enough. Putting their shoes back on, they returned
the skates to the front desk and walked out to the car. “Whew! That
was fun but tiring! I’m ready for a nap,” Curtis said.
“It’s almost lunchtime. Can you stay awake long enough to drive
around some more and maybe find someplace to eat?”
“Sure.”
So they drove around more of Cedarvale and looked at the
downtown shopping area, which was quaint and old-fashioned, with
head-in parking places on streets filled with shops—no strip malls, no
shopping centers. Spotting a restaurant called Ye Olde Eaterie, they
considered it but decided to see what else there was first. That turned
out to be a good plan, as they lucked into a restaurant just off the main
thoroughfare that specialized in kebabs. They had once eaten at a
chain restaurant of that sort, but this was an independent operation
and had a small-town feel to it that both men right away recognized
and appreciated.
Curtis ordered a pork kebab with onions, sweet red peppers,
jalapeños, and mushrooms. He also got corn salsa on the side. Corey
got a chicken kebab with potato chunks, tomato slices, onion, and
snow peas, topped with a garlic sauce. “Hopefully my breath will
have recovered by the time I give my speech,” he said.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
55
“Garlic breath wouldn’t carry all the way to the audience,” Curtis
assured him.
“I’m thinking of the book sales afterward.”
They ate lunch leisurely and then returned to the car and drove
around some more. The heart of the downtown district seemed to be
an area designated Cedarvale Center, with governmental buildings
and a very tall flagpole with a huge flag. Off to one side was
Cedarvale Park. “Shall we?” asked Corey.
“Sure!” agreed Curtis, so they strolled the park, observing the
statuary and reading the inscriptions at the base of each monument.
Most were statues of national figures, but a few commemorated local
heroes. Curtis pointed out a couple of women’s statues, unusual since
most statues traditionally are of war heroes, and most war heroes are
men. Cedarvale, however, had seen fit to immortalize Betsy Ross,
Emma Lazarus, who wrote the poem at the base of the Statue of
Liberty, and two local women, Frances List, who had been
instrumental in the founding of Cedarvale, and Marsha Littlejohn,
who had lost her life trying to rescue both people and documents in a
fierce blaze at the old city hall. “I’m glad to see women getting their
due,” Curtis said emphatically. Corey agreed wholeheartedly.
By the time they had finished exploring the park and returned to
the car, it was a little past three o’clock. Now it was Corey who
wanted a nap, although more for practical purposes than because he
felt terribly sleepy. The evening’s speech was scheduled for eight
o’clock. He had been asked to arrive at seven thirty. The speech, a
variation on the one he had given a couple of weeks ago, would last
around forty-five minutes and be followed by the bookselling and
book signing. He wanted to be at his best for all this, not half-asleep
or draggy. They had already agreed on an early dinner, and a light
one, so that he would not be dragged down by being too full. It
seemed, then, that a nap, early dinner, and a quick shower and change
of clothes were next on the agenda.
“And I do mean a nap. That’s not code for sex,” Corey cautioned.
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“I know. I want a nap, too. Actually, I’m not as sleepy as I was
right after skating. I think either lunch fueled me or the walk in the
park woke me up, but I’ll still be glad to have a nap with you.”
So they returned to the inn and, taking off their shoes, lay down
on top of the bedspread, with the spread pulled back far enough to
expose the pillows. It was three forty-five when they lay down and
around four-thirty when they got up again.
“Where shall we eat?” Curtis asked.
“Not that same restaurant as last night,” Corey stipulated.
So they drove around until they found a restaurant called Better
Burgers. Curtis pointed out that they had wanted a light dinner, and he
wasn’t sure burgers qualified, but Corey said burgers would be light
enough, especially if he didn’t fill up on a lot of sides and desserts.
Curtis, who didn’t have to give a speech or eat lightly, ordered a
blue cheese jumbo baconburger with a side salad and onion rings.
Corey ordered a regular-sized bacon cheeseburger with fries. They ate
slowly and lingered over coffee afterward until Curtis checked his
watch and saw that it was nearly six thirty. “We have to get a move
on,” he said. They paid the check and left.
Back at the hotel, they both showered and changed clothes.
Corey’s dress shirt had French cuffs, and Curtis put the cufflinks in
for him. Always mildly nervous before a speech, Corey had fumbled
with the cufflinks until Curtis offered to help. For sure, Curtis was
once again much more nervous than Corey, even though he was not
the one giving the speech. “You don’t even have to help with the
bookselling if you don’t want to,” Corey had told him, yet thinking
about his beloved getting up and facing some two hundred people
made Curtis nervous on his behalf. The prospect was, to him, most
daunting.
When they arrived at the auditorium at seven-thirty, Ben Winkler,
in charge of the event, met them and introduced himself. A perfectly
considerate gentleman, Ben made sure to include Curtis in his
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
57
conversation and not leave him standing on the sidelines, ignored.
“Are you a motivational speaker, too?” Ben asked.
“No, I’m not,” said Curtis, uncomfortable even in this one-on-one.
“An author?”
“No, not that either. I handcraft wooden windup toys for kids and
unique fishing lures for fishermen and women.”
“Wow. How did you get into that?” Ben asked, and Curtis found
himself in the position of having to answer at some length. But, as
often happened, once he started talking, he got more comfortable, and
talking about his career was a familiar subject that he warmed to with
increasing enthusiasm as he went on. He talked at some length about
the windup toys in particular.
“Wow,” Ben said again. “That’s quite a story. I bet you’d be a
good speaker, too. Would you like to come address our group
sometime in the future? I could find a spot in the calendar in a few
months. Say, March?”
“Oh, I don’t do speeches!” Curtis was wide-eyed with fear as he
answered.
“But you could. Think about it. Don’t just turn me down. Say
‘maybe,’ and we can talk again in a few weeks. Can I reach you
through Curtis? This could be the start of a whole new sideline for
you.”
The prospect terrified him, and that fear haunted him all through
the rest of the evening. He missed huge chunks of Corey’s speech for
obsessing over the worry that somehow Ben would demand that he
give a speech, even though he knew that was a silly fear.
Of course, Curtis had heard Corey’s speech before, anyhow. Not
only had Corey given essentially the same speech, with just a few
minor modifications, a couple of weeks earlier, but he had practiced it
at home countless times, with Curtis playing the part of the audience.
Curtis almost knew the speech by heart!
When the talk was over, it came time to sell and sign books.
Corey had set up his books on a table in the back of the room before
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the speech, and now he and Curtis moved to the back to wait for
people to come talk to Corey and, hopefully, buy copies of his book.
Curtis sat off to the side, watching but not taking part in the
conversations and transactions. Nonetheless, a few people who were
waiting their turns came up to him to ask if he was with Corey and
then went on to engage him in further conversation. Curtis was very
uncomfortable and wished he could make himself invisible.
At last, the last person had left the auditorium, and Curtis rejoined
Corey to help him pack up the unsold books. “How did it go?” he
asked.
Curtis put his hand out flat and waggled it side to side. “So-so,” he
said. “Not great, not awful. I had hoped to sell more copies, but
between what I sold and what they’re paying me, I covered our
weekend expenses—the inn, food, skating, gasoline…. So I’d say we
made out all right. We got a weekend minivacation that, in effect,
didn’t cost us anything.”
“Thank you again for the weekend,” Curtis said, but instead of
feeling up, he was feeling very glum. Haunted by his own reaction
when Ben had suggested he give a speech, and aware that he could
have been of help to Corey in the back-of-the-room sales if he hadn’t
quailed from the public contact, Curtis was feeling very down on
himself. In fact, he was even questioning his whole relationship with
Corey. As wonderful as Corey was, he deserved a lover who could be
a fully participating partner, who could be right there at his side,
helping him with more than just carrying books to and from the car.
This was something Curtis was sure he could never, never, never offer
Corey. He felt like a failure. He felt like he was a drag on Corey. And
he felt guilty. By remaining with Corey, was he holding him back
from meeting someone better, someone who could offer all the things
Curtis could not?
He went to bed that night with a very heavy heart.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
59
Chapter 3
The concern that he was holding Corey back continued to dog
Curtis. He kept thinking that maybe the kindest thing he could do for
the man he loved was leave him. But before Curtis could decide
whether he needed to put an end to the relationship, he started feeling
that Corey was pulling away from him. Corey was deep into writing
his next book, and he explained to Curtis, “This has nothing to do
with you. Please don’t take it personally,” yet Curtis did just that.
Despite Corey’s claims that “I just need alone time to pull this book
together. The publisher is expecting it in a month, and it’s crunch
time.” Curtis couldn’t help but wonder why all of a sudden Corey
needed time by himself to such a great extent.
Besides working on the book, Corey was also rehearsing for
another speech. Although he was basing it on the same speech he’d
used before, once again he had revised it and tweaked it to suit the
audience and to keep it fresh. “This is the big time,” he said with glee.
And indeed it was. The speech was booked for New York, in the
Beacon Theatre on Broadway on the Upper West Side. “Just think of
all the restaurants we can sample in Manhattan…and the theatre is
only half a mile or so from Zabar’s.”
“We?”
“Well, of course you’re coming with me!”
“I don’t know….” Curtis was mentally reliving his experience at
the last speech.
Corey, misunderstanding the source of his reluctance, said,
“You’re self-employed. You can get ahead on your work and take a
few days off in the big city with me. Since I’m not as available to you
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these days as I used to be, that gives you more time to get ahead on
your production. If it’s money you’re concerned about, don’t worry.
I’ll pay your plane fare and the hotel and meals.”
“Let me think about it.”
“What’s there to think about? You’ve never been to New York,
have you?”
“No.”
“Everybody needs to visit New York at least once. It’ll be right
before Christmas. We can go to Rockefeller Center, see the tree, skate
at the rink….”
“Remember the last time we tried to skate, in Cedarvale? We
wound up on our butts.”
“We still have to experience it. And we’ll go see the Rockettes,
and catch at least one Broadway show….”
Caught up in Corey’s enthusiasm, Curtis reluctantly agreed, but he
was still uncertain where the relationship was headed. Thanksgiving
came and went quietly, in the meanwhile, with Curtis wondering just
what he had to be thankful for if he was about to kiss Corey good-bye.
Although he was wrapped up in his book writing, Corey couldn’t
fail to notice that Curtis seemed concerned about something, and the
Sunday after Thanksgiving, he asked him what was on his mind.
Curtis spilled it all—his concern that he wasn’t a suitable mate for
Corey because he couldn’t even help him in back-of-the-room sales,
and that he was keeping Corey from meeting someone more
appropriate by remaining in the relationship with him.
“You’re not a hindrance to me!” Corey exploded. “I love you!
Have I ever once complained about you? I knew you were shy when
we first got together. I accept you as you are.”
“But I’m keeping you from meeting someone more suitable, who
can be more of a help to you.”
“I don’t want someone ‘more suitable.’ I want you.”
“But you’ve been pulling away from me lately. Ever since we got
back from Cedarvale.”
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
61
“Only to get this damn book finished. That this started after
Cedarvale is just a coincidence. I still very much want you and need
you in my life. In fact, I want you to listen to my speech right now if
you can. Tell me how I’m coming across and if I’m punching the
right points.”
And so, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, Curtis
listened as Corey rehearsed his speech. When Corey was finished, he
looked at Curtis and, apparently noticing his preoccupied look, said,
“You don’t look like you were really listening. Are you still worrying
for nothing over your shyness?”
“Yes, I am, but I wouldn’t call it ‘for nothing.’”
“Have you ever tried hypnosis for your shyness?”
“Hypnosis? No. I’ve tried psychotherapy, tranquilizers, and even
acupuncture, but I haven’t tried hypnosis. Frankly, I’ve given up.”
“I have a colleague who’s a hypnotherapist. I wish you’d try a few
sessions with him. I really think it might help.”
“I haven’t much hope, but I guess it can’t hurt to try.”
“I’ll write down his number for you.” He scratched at a pad of
paper with a pen. “Here you go.”
Mark Friedlander, the hypnotherapist, was booked for the next
two weeks, but he called Curtis a few days later to say that he had had
a cancellation and could see him in three days. Curtis still associated
hypnosis with the parlor variety of the art, hypnotists making people
bark and engage in other strange behaviors. He was wary about going
to Mark’s office and insisted Corey come with him. Corey laughed
off his concerns but agreed to go with him and gave him a book to
read, meanwhile, on the uses of clinical hypnosis.
On the day of the appointment, Mark greeted Curtis, said hi to
Corey, and asked Curtis what the nature of his problem was. Then he
put Curtis into a light trance and asked him to envision himself
talking to a group of people and feeling very relaxed. Through over
half an hour, he led Curtis through various scenes that freaked Curtis
out when they occurred in real life, always relaxing him and telling
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him that if he tapped the back of his left wrist three times with his
right fingers, he would immediately relax and feel comfortable. At the
end of the session, before bringing Curtis out of the trance, he gave
him a posthypnotic suggestion that anytime he felt shy, nervous, or
freaked, he had only to tap the back of his left wrist three times with
his right fingers, and he would immediately feel relaxed and at ease.
“You will remember everything I said when you wake up,” he
concluded before bringing Curtis out of the trance.
“How do you feel?” he asked when he woke Curtis up.
“Fine. Relaxed. That wasn’t at all what I expected.” Then, turning
to Corey, he asked, “I didn’t do anything weird or say anything
personal that I don’t remember, did I?”
“Not at all,” Corey reassured him.
“I can see you again in ten days,” Mark said.
“That’s right before we leave for New York,” Corey observed.
They made the appointment.
Curtis, still skeptical that hypnosis could be any more of a cure
than the other remedies he’d tried, was grateful that the speech this
time involved neither a banquet nor back-of-room sales. They would
be in a theatre. He would be either in a front-row seat or in the
wings—his choice. Corey would give his speech and leave, with no
interaction with the attendees. Curtis could be comfortable about the
event.
Meanwhile, life went on in its new pattern. Corey, working
feverishly to finish up his new book, saw less of Curtis and spent
more time than ever in seclusion. When he did see Curtis, more often
than not a rehearsal of the speech was part of the evening. They still
ate dinner together the nights that they saw each other and still made
love, and now, saying “I love you” to each other became a natural part
of their togetherness.
Yet Curtis still fretted that he wasn’t a suitable mate for Corey and
wondered if the hypnosis could possibly help. As he avoided
uncomfortable situations determinedly, he had no opportunity to see if
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
63
there were any indications of progress. Christmas was coming, and
Corey wondered whether it would be the last holiday the two would
spend as a couple. He went out and shopped for Christmas presents
for Corey, spending lavishly, way beyond his budget, since he was so
uncertain of their future—or whether they had a future together at all.
He stowed the presents away in a closet in his house. These days,
they most often got together at Corey’s house, so Curtis didn’t hide
the presents too concernedly. He knew the odds were against Corey
discovering them. And even if Corey did, he wasn’t a small child. He
wouldn’t peek.
The day before they were to leave, Curtis had his next session
with Mark, the hypnotherapist. Reassured by his last visit, he didn’t
ask Corey to go with him this time. Again, Mark put him in a light
trance, placed him in various problematic situations, and relaxed him.
He reminded Curtis to tap the back of his left wrist with his right
fingers any time he felt shy, tense, or nervous, and told him he would
immediately feel relaxed, at ease, and self-confident. Once again, he
told Curtis that he would remember everything when he woke up, and
that he would be increasingly more confident in situations that used to
freak him out.
The next day, the couple took off for New York. They had seats
together in a three-seat row on the plane, but the old chap who
occupied the third seat in the row plugged an iPod into his ears and
closed his eyes before the plane even took off. Curtis wasn’t sure if
the fellow was asleep or not but whispered a wicked suggestion into
Corey’s ear about what they could get up to without the fellow ever
realizing it if they put a blanket across their laps. “I’m not yet a
member of the mile-high club,” Curtis said.
“Neither am I, but I’m not sure a hand job qualifies,” Corey said,
waving off the suggestion. “Anyhow, I think you’re teasing.”
“Well, halfway,” Curtis said. “But I really would try it if you
would.”
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“That would make for some great headlines right before my
speech. ‘Motivational speaker arrested on plane on public indecency
charge.’ I’ll pass.”
They got up to no hijinks whatsoever on the plane. Fortunately,
the flight was uneventful in every other way, as well. They landed at
LaGuardia only five minutes behind schedule, which Corey said he
considered “on time” for all practical purposes, and they caught a cab
to their midtown hotel.
They had more baggage than they’d brought with them to
Cedarvale. They each had two big suitcases, rather than the smaller
ones they’d brought last time, plus a garment bag each, and Corey’s
laptop, and there was a third, smaller suitcase in which each had put
those items that would not fit in the large suitcases. When they got up
to their room, they saw that they had two double beds instead of the
king-size bed Corey had requested. Corey was all for calling
downstairs and asking for a room change, but Curtis persuaded him
that they could both easily share a double bed, just as they did at
home, and Corey conceded he was right.
It was late afternoon already, and Corey suggested they find
someplace where he could have a drink and Curtis could have
something nonalcoholic but refreshing. Curtis, being sensible, said,
“Why don’t we do that at the restaurant? We don’t have a car at our
disposal, and cabs are not only expensive but I’m told they’re often
hard to get in New York.”
Corey had to agree that made good sense. “I have the name of a
good Middle Eastern restaurant in midtown, about a half a mile from
here,” he said. “What do you say we walk it? We can take in the
sights on the way. If we’re going to be tourists, we may as well act the
part. Walk with our heads up to the skyscrapers and gawk?”
Curtis laughed at the description but agreed to the suggestion, so
they changed clothes and set out for the restaurant. As it was still
early, they got a table without waiting. They weren’t used to dining so
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
65
early, but they’d skipped lunch, as they were just boarding the plane
around noon and hadn’t brought lunch aboard with them.
Corey ordered a double bourbon. “I’m not driving,” he pointed
out, “and the speech isn’t tonight, either.” Curtis ordered club soda
with a splash of lime juice.
“We have some excellent bottled sparkling waters,” the waiter
suggested.
“Club soda will be fine,” Curtis said. Then he had a sudden
realization—he hadn’t been intimidated by the waiter. Was it possible
the hypnosis was having an effect?
They both ordered lamb preparations for their dinner and, by
mutual consent, they each shared half of their dinners with the other.
Both dishes happened to come with chick peas, but prepared
differently. Corey’s chick peas came mixed with green peas in a
sauce. Curtis’s came with onions and spices.
Dinner was excellent. Far from cheap but, both agreed, well worth
the price. The waiter tried to tempt them with desserts, but both Corey
and Curtis were quite well filled. “Perhaps one dessert to share
between the two of you?” wheedled the waiter, but the two men
firmly declined.
Tired, full, and cold in the New York winter they were
unaccustomed to, they agreed to catch a cab back to the hotel. It was
still early, only seven thirty, and Curtis suggested they might yet get
last-minute tickets to a show, but Corey said, “I don’t want to be a
party pooper, but I’m really tired, and I certainly don’t want to get
sick before my speech. Let’s stay in.”
Although he was disappointed, Curtis said, “As long as I’m with
you, I’m happy,” which was true enough in spite of his
disappointment.
They made up for it the next day, though. They got up early,
headed to Rockefeller Center, and took in the sight of the big tree.
Then they went skating at the ice rink, where they did no better than
they had at Cedarvale, spending more time on their butts than on their
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feet, but fortunately they did themselves no serious damage when they
fell. From there they went to Radio City Music Hall, where they
scored a couple of tickets to the matinee, then went looking for
someplace to have lunch.
“Let’s do as the New Yorkers do and eat hot dogs from a Sabrett
cart,” said Corey as they passed a hot dog vendor on a corner, but
Curtis nixed that idea, and they wound up at a kosher-style deli,
where Corey ordered an overstuffed corned beef sandwich, Curtis
ordered an overstuff pastrami sandwich, and they once again traded
half each. There was a bowl of sour garlic dill pickle slices on the
table, and the sandwiches came with potato salad and coleslaw.
Wanting to make the most of the experience, they also shared an order
of latkes—Jewish-style potato pancakes—though they wound up
wrapping the last latke in wads of paper napkins and stuffing it in
Corey’s pocket for later. They just couldn’t eat any more.
“You’ll have to roll me back to the Music Hall,” Corey said.
“Me, too,” Curtis echoed.
They stood in line to get into the theatre, and Curtis reflected on
what a wonderful vacation they were having. Just being with Corey
was enough of a treat for him, but this? This was pure bliss. Oh, if
only the hypnosis works! I don’t want to lose Corey. I really, really
don’t want to lose Corey.
The Christmas show at Radio City was always a treat for out-of-
towners and even some New Yorkers, according to the woman in line
in front of them, who said she was from Westchester, in the suburbs,
and asked where they were from. Once they were inside the theatre
and seated, there was a bit of a wait before the show started. The
couple talked quietly between themselves, and Corey took the latke
out of his pocket. “I’m still pretty full, but I suspect a cold and greasy
latke would be no treat at all. Want to split this now?” So they broke
it in half and ate it up surreptitiously, then wiped their greasy hands
on the napkins he had surrounded it with. Then the show started.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
67
When it ended, Curtis and Corey were goggle-eyed. It was almost
dinnertime by now, and their fullness from lunch had evanesced while
they watched the show. “If we eat early, we can try to get tickets to a
Broadway show tonight,” Corey suggested. “There are lots of good
restaurants on the Upper West Side.”
They walked over to Eighth Avenue and caught a Broadway bus
that, beyond Columbus Circle, veered onto Broadway and ran north
on the Upper West Side. “Let’s look for a Cuban restaurant,” Corey
suggested. There were no Latino restaurants in Surfspray.
Finding a Cuban restaurant, they didn’t even order separately.
Consulting the menu together, they ordered lechón asado, camarones
en salsa verde, chicharrones, mofongo, and plátanos maduros fritos.
“Just put it all in the middle of the table and give us two plates,”
Corey requested, though it turned out to be more food than would fit
in the middle of the small table for two, not to mention that he didn’t
realize that the two main dishes, shrimp in green sauce and roast pork,
came with arroz y habichuelas, rice and beans, in addition. They ate
as much as they could of their plantain dishes, pork skins, main
courses, and all, but a good half of the food was left over.
“Thank God for the little fridge in our hotel room,” Curtis said.
They kept eating even after they were well stuffed. It was that
good—and that different from anything they’d ever eaten. “Surfspray
could use a good Cuban restaurant,” Corey said.
“I’m not sure it would fly,” Curtis said. “It might be too exotic.
We don’t even have a sushi restaurant.”
“You may be right.”
They caught the subway back to Times Square, found a theatre
with a show they both thought they’d like to see, and lucked into a
pair of tickets. The show had been running long enough that it was no
longer a hot ticket, and they were able to snag not just a pair of tickets
but tickets for good seats in the orchestra. Curtis blanched when he
heard the price. The tickets would set Corey back nearly $200.
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“It’s worth it—and I can afford it,” Corey reassured him. “I’m
being paid well for tomorrow night’s speech.”
The show didn’t let out until after eleven, and they got back to the
hotel late. Then they made love and didn’t get to sleep until nearly
one in the morning.
In the morning, they decided to visit the ship Intrepid, docked on
the West Side, and the 9/11 memorial, then grab lunch and take a
helicopter tour—another expensive item, as were the taxis they took
several of in getting from one place to another. Curtis was upset at
how much money Corey was spending, but Corey shushed him. “Who
knows when we’ll get to New York again?” he asked.
Or if we’ll even still be together. Curtis tried to put such thoughts
out of his mind. Enjoy the weekend now. Face your doubts later.
It was while they were up in the helicopter, looking down at
Manhattan island, that Corey started sneezing. The first ah-choo was
hardly alarming, but by the fifth one he had also begun to realize he
was developing a sore throat. “Oh, no! The speech is tonight!” he
said—or, rather, croaked, for his voice was not its usual strong timbre.
“I think you’ve got laryngitis!” said Curtis, putting the back of
one hand to Corey’s forehead. “And a fever, too,” he added.
“I do feel warm—and sick.”
“I’ll find a supermarket and get honey and lemon and aspirin.
We’ve got to lick this before tonight,” Curtis said.
The helipad was on the east side of midtown, near a residential
area, and they hailed a cab and asked the driver to take them to the
nearest supermarket. While Corey sat on a bench up front, Curtis
scurried around the aisles, looking for the requisite items. Then, in
order to get Corey back to the hotel as quickly as possible, they hailed
another taxi. “Get undressed and get in bed,” Curtis directed Corey.
He mixed honey with lemon in a hotel glass, put water in another
glass, and gave Corey the honey-and-lemon mixture, two aspirins,
and water to swallow it down with. “Now go to sleep,” he
commanded him, but Corey was too upset to sleep.
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
69
He was due at the Beacon Theatre at seven thirty, in advance of
going onstage at eight. At quarter to seven, still in bed and no better,
he croaked, “What can we do?”
“I have a plan,” said Curtis, sounding very nervous. He tapped the
back of his left wrist three times with his right fingers, then again.
“What’s your plan?” croaked Corey.
Curtis tapped his wrist again three times, very agitatedly before
slowly, hesitantly telling Corey what he had in mind.
At promptly seven thirty, a taxi disgorged Curtis and Corey in
front of the Beacon. Curtis’s stomach was growling, since neither of
them had had dinner, though he was too nervous to eat even though
he was hungry. As for Corey, he admitted he was too sick to even be
hungry. They entered the theatre and sought out the man they were to
look for.
At eight o’clock, the theatre manager took to the stage in front of
the quieting audience as the house lights dimmed. “Our scheduled
speaker, Corey Atwood, is ill and suffering from laryngitis,” he
began. A murmur of disappointment raced through the crowd. “We
are fortunate, however, to have his associate, Curtis Carmody, with
us. Mr. Carmody is going to deliver Mr. Atwood’s exact talk to you,
so you will hear Mr. Atwood’s talk tonight, just as scheduled, but
from the mouth of his associate.”
Curtis nervously tapped the back of his wrist three times, and then
he did it again.
“You’re sure you know the speech?” Corey whispered, having
lost his voice completely by this point.
“Perfectly. I’ve listened to you rehearse it often enough. I know it
cold. That’s not the issue. It’s getting up and facing all these people.”
“Plenty of people who aren’t shy are still cowed by public
speaking. But you can do it. Mark set you up for success. You can do
it! This is your debut! Go knock them dead.”
On shaky legs, Curtis walked to the podium. He looked out over
the audience, but with the house lights dimmed, it was difficult to
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make out the faces beyond the first few rows. That helped a little.
Clearing his throat, he tapped the back of the wrist three times again
and opened his mouth.
He felt faint and woozy. Gripping the podium, he steadied
himself. “Good evening,” he began, and stopped. How does the
speech start? Then he heard Corey’s voice in his head, as he had
heard it so many evenings in Corey’s house. “Are you squandering
your life?”
He repeated the words aloud. “Are you squandering your life?”
The next line came naturally to him. “Or are you making the most of
your natural talents and abilities? Is your life everything you want it
to be? If it isn’t, do you just grouse and gripe about it, or are you
doing something about it?” He was getting warmed up now. “If
you’re not doing something about it, would you like to?” He was
punching all the right words vocally, speaking with all the right
emphases in all the right places.
At first he just imitated Corey, speaking the way he’d heard Corey
speak, using the same pauses, even thrusting his fist out the way
Corey did in the places Corey did it. After a while, though, something
took over in his brain. No longer simply mimicking Corey, Curtis
delivered Corey’s speech from the heart. He was still using Corey’s
words, still delivering exactly the speech that Corey had rehearsed
with him all those many evenings, but he was no longer exactly
parroting Corey. Putting his heart into it, he gave it his own unique
delivery. And the longer he spoke, the more confident he became.
He was no longer tapping his wrist. He no longer needed to. He
was on a roll. Curtis Carmody had come out of his shy shell. He felt
he was being reborn that night.
After forty-five minutes, he wound up with, “Thank you.” The
applause was thunderous. He held his hand up to quiet the audience.
“Corey Atwood is here tonight, even though he’s ill. The applause
really belongs to him. He can’t talk to you. He can barely whisper.
But I want him to come out here and take a bow. Your applause really
The Adonis Dating Service: Curtis
71
belongs to him. He wrote the talk. I merely delivered it. Come on out,
Corey.”
Corey tottered out from the wings, looking like he was feeling
perfectly awful. The applause broke out again, and Corey first waved
with both hands to acknowledge it, and then he put his hands together
in front of his chest and bowed. Then, since the audience was still
cheering, he extended a hand toward Curtis, who bowed in a similar
manner. Then the two left the stage together, heading back into the
wings as the applause continued.
“Well, you did it,” Corey whispered.
“We did it. You wrote the speech!”
“You did it. You delivered the speech—and you conquered your
fear. You’re on your way, babe. Next thing, you’ll be giving speeches
of your own. You’re a natural. Remember that fellow in Cedarvale
who wanted you to give a talk on wooden windup toys? Call him back
and say yes.”
“The only one I want to say yes to is you.” Curtis thought about
how close he’d come to breaking up with Corey. Well, that certainly
wouldn’t be necessary now.
The flight home the next morning was miserable, with Corey
sneezing and coughing, hacking and moaning, wrapped in an airline
blanket and feverish despite the aspirin. Curtis, worried about him,
could barely enjoy the euphoria that kept trying to overwhelm him.
He was free of his lifelong shyness at last—and he was free to stay
with Corey. At last he was sure they had a future together.
Three days in bed and time, the great healer, did wonders for
Corey, although he was still sneezing and coughing for nearly another
week beyond that. He was well enough by Christmas, though, for the
two of them to celebrate together, just them and a tableful of goodies.
They had finally used up the last of the leftover Christmas turkey, but
now there was a big ham to eat—what they could eat of it at dinner
that night, with leftovers “in perpetuity,” as Corey pessimistically put
it.
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They had exchanged their presents the night before. Corey bent to
Curtis’s tradition of exchanging the gifts on Christmas Eve. They
were both lavish with their presents for each other, but even if Corey
had not gifted Curtis with anything, Curtis would have been happy.
He had Corey in his life, “now and forever,” as Corey had put it when
he gave him the gold commitment ring he’d had made out of the
melted-down gold from the watch. And Curtis had finally overcome
his lifelong shyness, thanks to Corey’s recommendation of Mark, the
hypnotherapist. A bright future lay ahead of him—with Corey.
What more could he possibly want?
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
No stranger to male/male stories, Diana Sheridan edited gay male
sexzines for the better part of two decades under the nom de plume of
“Dan Maxwell.” Though “Diana Sheridan” isn’t her true name either,
it does reflect her true gender. In her own name, she has had
numerous books published both in print and as e-books, is an
accomplished editor of both books and magazines, and is comfortable
switching gears to go from serious nonfiction to erotica in her work.
Diana lives with her Significant Other, who is fully aware of and
supportive of the many facets of her career.
For all titles by Diana Sheridan, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/diana-sheridan
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com