As she ran her oiled-up hands over my pecs and biceps, I couldn’t stifle the erection pressing against my pants. I hope she doesn’t notice. I’m just glad I didn’t strip down to my boxers.
She molded and painted with pursed lips and a determined gaze. Then she stepped back to admire her work.
What do you think?” I asked.
“We need mud.” She put a vertical index finger in the air. “I’ll be right back.”
When she left, I breathed deeply, focusing on calming my erection.
She returned too soon.
“I like my devil dirty,” she said. And with a malicious smile, she proceeded to smear my body with mud.
I could tell she was enjoying herself, licking her lips and flashing an occasional smile.
“Wow. Your one sexy devil,” she said as she stood back and clasped her hands together. “Can I take a picture?”
“Definitely. I could use more pics in my profile. Increase my chances.”
She took out her phone and aimed it at me. “Wait. Let’s go to the oven. It has a nice dungeony look to it.”
She was right. The photos turned out great. I was sure to get some work from them.
“Thank you, Greta. You may not know this, but you’re really helping me out a lot.”
“My pleasure. What’s it for, anyway? You said something about eating cake?”
“Here, I’ll show you.”
Never would I have suspected I’d be showing Greta the job offers I’d been bidding on. It was just a crazy off-the-grid scheme to make money. I thought I’d be embarrassed or even ashamed. But Greta showed a beautiful mix of enthusiasm and curiosity that was impossible to resist.
I opened my laptop to the deep web site where I’d been looking for clients.
“These are all jobs!?” she said, clearly surprised by the sheer volume of offers.
I opened another window. “These are the ones I’m currently bidding on. Damn.”
“What?”
“This line means my bid was not accepted.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Damn. None of my bids were accepted.”
“But there are so many offers!” she said, her enthusiasm not at all affected by the rejections I’d just shown her.
I scooted over and let her have free reign of my laptop and the site.
“Why not this one?”
“Where?” I leaned in to get a better look.
“Mid-twenties, muscles, long dark hair.” She turned to me with an excited look on her face. “That’s you.”
“Yeah, but you have to look at this column here. Twenty dollars. I don’t bid on anything under fifty.”
Once she discovered the pay column her eyes lit up. “My goodness, two hundred dollars. Here’s one for four hundred. This is insane!”
I chuckled. “You haven’t seen anything yet. These are just the solo jobs. For a couple, some offers go up tenfold.” I clicked on the cryptic menu options I’d deciphered then leaned back. “Look at what these offers are paying.”
Greta’s eyes widened as I pointed to the screen.
“Oh my…. Look at this one too.”
I don’t know what I was expecting when I opened up my secret life to Greta but I couldn’t have wished for a better reaction.
9
Greta
The day after lunch and devil make-up with Jake, the airline finally delivered our gear.
The sun was out, our spirits were up, and we decided to head up to the top of the mountain for some activewear shots.
I spent the day ordering male models around, getting them to pose for me and flex for me then I’d look them over carefully, examine the light shimmering off their oiled up bodies and maybe take a shot. I had enough material in front of me to keep me focused, but my mind was elsewhere.
Alex, the clean-cut blue-eyed blond was doing nothing for me. My thoughts, instead, went below, down to that distant valley where I’d dared to meet my mystery muscle-bound devil the night before.
He wasn’t a real devil.
He had kind eyes, and he went out of his way to make me feel comfortable and at ease. But he did have a certain darkness about him.
He tried to hide it, but not always. Sometimes he’d let me have a peek. How much more darkness there was to see, I couldn’t know. How much I would be able to handle, I couldn’t resist finding out.
Riding down the mountain back to Perth in the evening, it seemed that no one had been tired out from the day’s work. On the contrary, we were all giddy and energized. “That was great,” said Delvin. “A few more days like today and we’ll finish early.”
“And we can spend the extra days hiking in the mountains,” said Andy. He fluttered his eyebrows when he said “hiking in the mountains” like it was some kind of poorly veiled code between them.
“Or we could get hammered at the local pubs,” said Kurt. He slapped Michael on the arm. “Who’s with me?”
“We could get hammered and go hiking in the mountains,” said Michael, to which the others laughed.