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From: "Strip-him.com" <webdude@striphim.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.gay.moderated
Subject: RP: "In Case of Skin Contact: STRIP-HIM.com" (1/?) (M/M, no sex)
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 03:23:17 -0600
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===================

				In Case of Skin Contact
					STRIP-HIM.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-----
Note:  You can find an illustrated version of this story at
			http://strip-him.com/stories/
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-----

This was really annoying.  I'd worked late to get a bug fixed before
next week's software release, and I'd figured I would go to a bar to
unwind, knowing it was too late to get a decent dinner anywhere.  I'd
have settled for an evening at home jerking off to porn, and then
crashing early.  But I couldn't even do that.  I was stuck in my
apartment, unable to leave, unable to go to bed.  Unable to do any of
the things I usually look forward to doing at home after a hard day's
work.  I had just finished hiding all my porn magazines, and it wouldn't
be much fun looking at one knowing that I might have to to hastily stash
it under a sofa cushion any minute.

Maybe I should have called one of the places in the yellow pages.  Some
of them promised to have a guy over within half an hour.  But then I'd
have to pay for it, and I didn't believe those "starting at $15" claims.

If they knew how valuable my time is, I thought, seething, they would
think twice about keeping me waiting.  I was almost ready to let my
fingers do the walking, and wondering if I could stick the apartment
management with the bill, when there was a knock on the door.  "About
time," I muttered as I opened it.

He must have heard me.  "Sorry, sir.  I got here as fast as I could."
The dark-haired guy at my door looked familiar.  He looked muscular
under his uniform, and was holding a heavy-looking toolkit as casually
as if it weighed nothing.

"That's okay," I said automatically.  It was one thing to be mad at an
anonymous apartment management company representative on the phone, and
much harder once the guy who'd been keeping me waiting had a face.
Especially a handsome, young, friendly-looking face.  Some guys are
worth waiting for.  Besides, I realized the delay might not be
completely his fault, for all I knew.  I smiled at him and stepped aside
to let him squeeze his broad-shouldered frame past my more average one.

"So they told me me your dishwasher isn't working."

"I wouldn't have called you just for that, at this hour," I said
apologetically.  "Hey, aren't you our regular maintenance guy?"

"Yeah.  My name's Antonio."

"Alan," I said, shaking hands.  "You fixed my heater last fall.  First
thing in the morning, if I remember right.  I didn't know you worked at
night too."

"Yeah, I'm on call 24-7.  I'm the entire maintenance staff for the whole
complex.  Well, except for my supervisor."

"I think I've seen him."  I remembered seeing Antonio being given
instructions by a guy not much older than him, who looked like he spent
all his free time eating and drinking beer.  "He doesn't look like he
does much except supervise."  To look at Antonio, on the other hand,
with all those muscles bulging under his uniform, you'd guess he spent
all day at the gym, if you didn't know he came by most of those muscles
honestly, though constant labor.

"You got that right," he said, his dark eyes sparkling.

"I'm sorry to make you come back to work.  You've probably been working
all day."

"That's all right.  It goes with the job."  He strode over to the
kitchen.  "Ah, I see.  The dishwasher made the sink back up, too?"

"Right.  Almost overflowed."  I never like to look completely clueless
about home maintenance in front of another guy, so I felt the need to
take credit for what little I'd done.  "I noticed it just in time, and
opened up the dishwasher.  Which did overflow a little, which is why
there's a wet towel on the floor."

"Good thinking," he said, and I felt an unreasonable glow of pride.
"You really don't want to let it leak through the floor.  Have you seen
that guy in the apartment below you?  He could beat both of us up, man."

"I doubt that," I said.  "He's big, but it's probably all fat.  Not like
you."

He grinned shyly.  "It's hard to tell, the way he usually dresses, but
this one time when I came over to fix his shower, he answered the
door...  Well, I guess I ought to respect the residents' privacy and not
repeat things."  He stifled a yawn.

"Did I get you out of bed?" I asked sympathetically.  "It's past
midnight.  Do you want some coffee?"

"Oh, I couldn't ask you to---"

"It's no trouble.  I could use some myself anyway."  Plus, it would
distract me from picturing the encounter between Antonio and my beefy
neighbor that he had just left to my imagination.

"That would be great, man.  It's a long drive back to Concord."

"Concord?  You don't live nearby?"

"Yeah, right!  Like I could afford to live in the South Bay on my
salary."

I made him coffee as he started working.

"I'm going to need to pump this water out," he said with a sigh.  "Gotta
go back to the truck."

"Want your coffee first?"

"Not 'til I get back, thanks.  It'll warm me up."

He came back with a heavy-looking tank fitted with wheels and some
tubing.  He didn't look like he needed warming up; he was sweating
slightly.

"Please tell me you took the elevator," I said.

"It's been broken all week," he said, lifting the thing over my
threshold with apparent ease.  "They need parts.  But I guess you
wouldn't know.  You look like a guy who takes the stairs."

"Not carrying a monstrosity like that, I don't!" I said, but I was
pleased by the complement.

He gratefully gulped some coffee, then got to work pumping out the
standing water.  I put our used mugs on the counter and watched him work
on the pipes.  He was lying flat on his back, his broad shoulders
squeezed into the cabinet under the sink, and I tried not to take
advantage by staring too long at his crotch.

"Shit," he said after awhile.  "I'm not going to be able to get at it
from in here."  He extracted his bulk from under the sink.  "I have to
go down to the parking garage."

"Where those pipes come out of the ceiling?"

"Right."  He signed.  "And I stupidly forgot to bring a jacket."

"Want to borrow one of mine?  If it fits?"

"No thanks.  I wouldn't want to risk splashing anything on it.  Might if
I use your bathroom for a minute?"

"Sure.  It's right over there."

When he came back out of the bathroom, he said, "At least nothing in
there is affected.  Those pipes go off in a different direction.  I
checked.  Anyway, back in twenty or thirty minutes.  Hope you don't mind
waiting up."

I could hardly complain about having to wait around in the comfort of my
apartment while he wrestled with some rusty old pipes in a cold dark
garage.  I almost offered to keep him company, but I thought that might
be going too far.  He might get the idea that I was ... you know.
Especially since I was.

Suddenly, what he said sunk in: checking which direction the pipes went
had probably involved looking in the cabinet under the bathroom sink.
And that's where I'd hidden my magazines.  But if he'd noticed that they
were full of naked men, and that my favorite magazines favored smoothly
muscled and in their mid-20's -- in other words, guys who looked a lot
like him -- he'd shown no sign of it.

It was a bedraggled Antonio who knocked on my door half an hour later,
his uniform plastered against his muscular chest.  He was shivering
slightly.

"What happened to you?" I asked as I shut the door behind him.

"I screwed up.  Don't worry, though.  I got the drain clear."

"Is that water from my dishwasher you got drenched by?"

"I've had worse, believe me.  You got any more coffee?"

"Dude, you must be freezing."

"Not so much now that I'm inside.  And I can turn the heater up when I
drive home."

"Look, that stuff isn't meant to get on your skin.  It'll itch like
crazy if it dries, at the very least.  In fact, I'm pretty sure the
label says something like 'In case of skin contact, flush with water.'"

"This is nothing.  Just yesterday I got -- damn!"

"What?"

"I just remembered that my other uniform is still filthy.  I'll have to
take it to an all-night laundromat after I get home.  And... oh, man!  I
have to show up an hour early, to work with the painters.  What time is
it?"  He seemed to be mentally adding up the time it would take to drive
home, get his laundry clean, and drive back here, and calculating how
much time that left him to sleep.  Tough as he was, he looked like he
wanted to cry.

"Here's what we're gonna do," I told him.  "You get out of these wet
clothes, and I'll wash them right here."  One of the nice features of
this apartment was that it had its own small washer in a little closet,
with a dryer on top of it.

"No, that's all right, man.  It's nice of you to offer, but I really --"

I grabbed his shoulder and steered him toward the bathroom.  "And you're
gonna take a long, hot shower."  He was still shivering; I could feel
it.

"I can't do that.  It's unprofessional."

I grabbed both shoulders and muscled him toward the bathroom.  He made a
show of resisting.  But I could feel the solidity of his shoulders under
my hands, and I knew if he really objected I wouldn't have been able to
budge him.

"What's the matter?" I asked.  "Haven't you ever showered at a buddy's
place before, and crashed on his couch?"

He had no answer for that.  He was too nice to tell me that he didn't
think of me as his buddy.  Was it that I was a customer?  Or had he seen
the magazines?  I think one of them even had a shower scene on the
cover.  But there was no reason to believe he'd seen them.

I added gently, "Think about it.  You can get a good night's sleep and
wake up in the morning and put on a clean uniform, or you can spend the
next few hours miserably driving back and forth and guarding your
laundry."  It occurred to me belatedly that he might have someone at
home waiting for him.  I'd noticed he wasn't wearing a wedding ring, but
that doesn't mean anything these days.

"That's really nice of you, man," he said, finally weakening.  "You sure
you don't mind?"

"I'm glad to help.  It'll save you a huge amount of hassle, and it's not
like it's a big deal for me."

"That's what I like about you," he said as we reached the bathroom.
"You don't act like you think you're worth more than me just because
you're paid more."

I smiled and gave his shoulder a final squeeze before releasing him.
"Good.  Now get out of those clothes."

He closed the bathroom door before he stripped, but only halfway, as if
he wanted privacy but didn't want to make a big deal out of it.
Reluctantly, I stepped out of sight until I heard the water start and
the shower door slide closed.  Then I slipped into the room and took
away all his clothes.  I also took my towel off the hook and replaced it
with a fresh one.  Gazing longingly at the blurred outline of a hunky,
olive-skinned man through the frosted glass, I left him to enjoy his hot
shower while my towel mingled in the washer with Antonio's uniform
shirt, his undershirt, his pants, and his boxer shorts.

With the contents of Antonio's pockets spread out before me, I couldn't
resist.  I know I shouldn't have, but I rifled through his wallet -- not
the money or credit cards, just the photos.  I was hoping not to find
any incriminating pictures of anyone who might be a girlfriend or wife.
I didn't find any.  There were school portraits of two little kids,
which disappointed me until I found a family photo showing the same two
kids and their parents.  The father wasn't Antonio.  The mother looked
like she might be his sister.  The only other picture was a snapshot of
Antonio and three buddies at the beach, posing with their arms casually
around each other's bare shoulders.  However innocent it might have
seemed to them, the photo would have made a great substitute for the
magazines I'd been depriving myself of all night.  Antonio's body was
even more perfect than I'd imagined, and I had an excellent imagination.
Now, ironically, I had him naked in my apartment, and he was depending
on my to supply him with dry clothes.  I glanced at the washer.

Thirty seconds later, I was pounding at the bathroom door.  Getting no
answer, I opened it and shouted Antonio's name.  He kept on calmly
showering.

Without thinking, I started sliding the shower door open.

That got his attention.  "What the fuck, man?"

"Sorry!  But the washer's overflowing."  Well, the second part was true.
I wasn't entirely sorry, after seeing Antonio in his bathing suit in the
picture, to get a glimpse of him in the flesh.  I had a brief impression
of light gleaming off bulging arm muscles, of water beading on olive
skin, of lather tracing the curve of well-developed pecs.

[This part has an illustration: Go to http://strip-him.com/free/door003/
to see the photo.  Use your mouse to slide the door open.]

If I was sorry, it was that I stopped sliding the door before his entire
body came into view.  Through the glass I could see the refracted
suggestion of an impressively large penis to match the rest of his body.
If I slid it open any more now, though, there would be a price to pay.

"Can't hear you!" he shouted over the rush of water and the noise of the
washer.  "I've got water in my ears."  He stepped forward to shut off
the water, incidentally putting the bulk of his body behind the shield
of the shower door.

"Could you hand me a towel, man?"

I handed him the fresh towel without looking at him.  After toweling off
a little, he wrapped it around his waist and stepped out.

"The washing machine is overflowing," I said.  "I tried to turn it off,
but ..."  Sheepishly, I held out my left hand, which was still clutching
the control knob.

The half-naked handyman grinned at me and shook him head in mock disgust
at my fecklessness.  He stalked out to deal with the washer, clutching
the towel.  I tagged along.

"This is why I'm a *software* engineer," I joked lamely as Antonio
leaned in and groped for the plug with the hand not grasping the towel.
Like I said, I always feel a little unmanned at having to ask for
professional help in maintaining appliances in my own home.  "I didn't
even know the water would stop if you pulled the plug.  I mean, wouldn't
that leave the valves open?"

"They have solenoids that spring shut when you cut the power," he said.
He frowned at the suds covering my carpet.  "We'd better get this water
sopped up quick, or you know where it'll go."

"Right into the apartment downstairs.  The guy who's big enough to wipe
up the floor with both of us."

I hadn't intended the play on words, but Antonio groaned appreciatively
and grinned at me.

"I still say you could take him."  I took advantage of the excuse to  
run my
eyes over his impressively muscled body.  Now if only it were my tongue.

"Can you get me some rags?"

"Rags?" I echoed stupidly.  "Um, I think I used up my roll of paper
towels earlier when --"

"No, we need cotton, and lots of it.  Do you have any towels?"

"Dude, I'm a bachelor.  I own three towels. One of them's on the kitchen
floor, sopping wet.  The one I've been using for showers in the washing
machine."

"So where's the third one?"

"You're wearing it."

"Oh."  He looked down, and I'd swear he blushed.  He hesitated, as if
weighing the wrath of the guy downstairs against the indignity of doing
his job totally naked.  My sense of fairness won out over my lustful
desires.  I quickly unbuttoned my flannel shirt halfway down and pulled
it over my head.  Pulling my T-shirt back down to cover my abs, I tossed
him the shirt.

"Thanks, man."  He knotted the towel in place as firmly as he could and
knelt down to begin sopping up the suds.  "I knew you'd give me the
shirt off your back if I needed it," he quipped.

"Think that'll do the job?"

He looked up at me, a slight smile playing over his face.  "I may need
your T-shirt, too.  If that's okay."

I hesitated.  I'd never been ashamed of my body, but it sure didn't
compare well with Antonio's, or even his buddies in the wallet photo.

"Come on, man, it's only fair."

True enough.  Here he was, kneeling at my feet, naked except for a
towel.  I didn't want him to think I was too proud to even the score by
parting with some of my clothes, especially after what he'd said about
liking my egalitarian attitude.  I peeled off my T-shirt tossed it to
him.

"Thanks, buddy!  And those white cotton socks look like they'd be pretty
absorbent too."

Once I was barefoot, I got down next to him, socks in hand.  We worked
side by side, shirtless, on our hands on knees.  Occasionally our
shoulders brushed.  Now, that was the kind of accidental skin contact I
liked.

"These washers sometimes clog the pipes up with lint," he said as we
worked.  "Yours isn't the first.  I should have realized."

"I guess the pipes from the washer must connect up with the ones from
the kitchen."

"Right."

"Maybe this is what caused the problem in the first place," I
speculated.

"Not a bad deduction, for a software guy," he said, throwing an arm
companionably across my bare back.

He was getting laundry suds on me, but I was up to my elbows in it
anyway.  "We'll both need a shower after this," I observed.

"'A' shower?" he teased.  "I might insist on *separate* showers."

Was it an accident that he let his fingers brush my spine as he took his
hand away?  He had, after all, said "might."

				THE END (?)

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