Edging

The paint roller blazed a sticky highway of pale green up the smooth gray walls of the Hollingsworth foyer, announcing its wet progress like the lapping of a dozen tiny tongues. Trevor looked up from his perch atop the ladder and watched as his mentor deftly pivoted the end of the extension pole. The pad reached the summit of an unseen mountain just below the coved ceiling before slurping its descent. He watched with satisfaction as Dominic stepped back and reloaded the pad in the tray on the floor, tiny flecks of "Greenmount Silk" spattering his destroyed Jordans and crisp white Dickies as he rocked it back and forth across the grid. It had been several months since Trevor had started his painting apprenticeship, and he had quickly discovered that working with Dominic had more than just an innocent ASMR effect on him.

He shook himself and turned back to his work. "This color is awful," he commented as he flicked his brush against a doorframe and ran a clean bead along the molding like Dominic had shown him. It was by happenstance he was even allowed to apply paint this early in his career. Following the brutal winter, the summer heat had ignited a craze for paint jobs the company simply couldn't keep up with. Apprentices who were normally reserved for scut work like scraping, puttying, and cleaning brushes had been suddenly thrust into learning technique far sooner than usual.

"It's historic," Dominic said to the wall as he began another series of yellowy-green stalagmites. The color was reminiscent of key lime custard. "You don't have to like it. Just get it on the wall without fucking it up or making a mess. And careful what you say. The last thing I need is this lady knowing that a grunt is slapping ninety-dollar-a-gallon paint on her walls."

Trevor licked his lips in concentration. He still got a lump in his throat when he thought about Dominic standing over him, hand on his, showing him the correct angle to stack up the brush bristles in a corner for a clean, sweeping stroke. Trevor had undergone a dramatic metamorphosis since the last summer job he had held three years earlier. A high schooler at the time, he had taken a job with Clarity Carpet Cleaning where he had spent many afternoons behind the showroom, vacuuming and squeegeeing area rugs. But things had gone sideways when he had realized that seeing his boss, Rob, slopping through the suds behind the scrubbing machine in rubber boots day in and day out had somehow sexually activated him. It was as though the right combination of breakers had been flipped in his panel to "boot up" his drive, so to speak. Overnight, it seemed, he had transformed from an apathetic teen into a constantly aroused and frustrated young man. Rob had found him one fateful afternoon wearing his rubber boots, panting on the floor next to the clunking rug centrifuge he had mounted, a dark patch seeping at his crotch. That had been difficult to explain.

Reloading the brush with paint, Trevor thrummed more than burned at the memory, and he found himself adjusting his shorts.

"Are you feathering?" Dominic called over his shoulder. Trevor studied the band of shiny paint that he had pulled down the side of the wall and frowned.

"I thought I was edging."

The damp, rhythmic sizzle of the roller stopped as Dominic turned to him. "You're cutting in, not 'edging.' Jesus, you sound like you're jacking off. I mean, are you pulling your strokes out so that we don't end up with a visible line of paint build up?"

Trevor felt himself flush. "Oh. Yeah, I think so."

Dominic sighed and strode across the harlequin tile floor, extension pole in his hand like a shepherd staff. Trevor looked on from atop the ladder as his mentor leaned in to scrutinize his work, gazing down at the domed top of his backwards baseball cap. He could smell the sweet waft of Dominic's perspiration, but it wasn't his mouth that began to water.

Trevor had found that not only had his untimely termination from Clarity Carpet failed to chasten him, but rather it had whetted his appetite. He had returned to school that fall only to discover that the slick naked torsos of his classmates in the locker room now had the same stirring effect that Rob in his rubber boots had--the "tinkly" feeling, as he had labeled it earlier in his youth, since at the time, tinkling was the only known function of the cock. A full year of pleasure laced with torture and confusion had passed before Trevor finally pieced together why this predilection had sprouted forth like an eager shoot, thrusting its way unbidden through the surface of his mind, branching and snaking its green spaghetti fingers between his legs.

The seed had been sown years before, quite unwittingly by his Uncle Stu. Trevor had been seven at the time. It had been his first and only time on a boat, and he remembered they had been fishing for tuna. It was ridiculous, he had thought, to spend a day in the hot sun looking for something that was already canned in the grocery store and didn't even taste that good to begin with. Why not look for treasure? Or dolphins? What could have been just another day lost to the slow erosion of time, however, instead became a permanent monument on his mental landscape the moment Stu hooked a fish.

"Oh, shit! I got one!" Uncle Stu had cried. He had had his fishing rod attached to his waist with a series of belts--a fighting harness, his dad had called it--and it now arched away from him into the churning green water. Trevor thought it looked like a thick, black fountain of tinkle, geysering from between Stu's legs. As the rod pulsed and spazzed, Stu gasped and leaned back against it. "Fuck, it's a biggie!" He turned and grinned. Trevor had been mesmerized by the sight of his uncle straining against the unseen forces under the water. He had braced his bent knees on the padded edge of the boat, calf muscles bulging, his rubber deck boots squealing with anxiety as they fought for purchase on the wet floor.

"Is Uncle Stu fighting a fish?" he had asked his dad, who had promptly waved him off with a dismissive "not now, Trevor," and had scrambled to join in the struggle. Trevor stood transfixed as his dad took a spread-legged position behind Stu and wrapped his hands around the rod, pulling Stu's waist into his as they grimaced, grunted, and wrestled with the tuna, their tan bare backs becoming slick with sweat in the June sun, the shafts of the rubber boots slapping against their legs. That was the first tinkly feeling Trevor had ever experienced.

"Not bad," Dominic conceded, straightening. A bubble of Greenmount Silk slowly emerged from the end of his roller where it quivered hesitantly, then fell, streaking a pale verdant comet down the inside of his thigh. "Make sure you pull the brush away from the end of each stroke," he added.

Trevor nodded, thinking it would be nice to blot at the stain on Dominic's white pants with his finger. "Sure thing, boss."

Dominic turned away, crossing the cavernous foyer to the half-coated wall. "Christ, it's hot," he muttered. "Can't the Hollingsworths afford any AC now that they've bought this cathedral?" He set his roller in the pan with the pole against the wall and unzipped his coveralls, unfurling them to his waist like he was a half-sucked ear of corn. He peeled a damp t-shirt off over his head and chucked it to the floor. Trevor felt his eyes bulge at the bronze back, which tapered before vanishing into the waistband the same way a stream of thick paint does when it cascades from a pour spout.

Just like that, he was back at Clarity Carpet again, watching Rob plunge his feet into the rubber boots. Back in the high school locker room, seeing his friends emerge with towels wrapped around them, soap suds still trailing down their arms. Back on the deck of his Uncle Stu's boat, his rod quivering out over the water.

Dominic had resumed rolling the wall. Trevor tried to focus on cutting in, but the ache in the back of his throat was now echoed by an insatiable desperation down below. His eyes kept darting to Dominic's rippling arms, forcing the pole up and down in its sticky, even tempo. The heels of his paint-caked Jordans mashed against and raised up from the canvas drop cloth as they would have had he pinned a lover to a wall and was having his way with them. Trevor found himself grinding the ladder, matching the rhythm of the paint roller as it soggily pulled itself along the plaster, thrusting his hips every time Dominic plowed another green trail up the wall. And each time there was a pause so that the roller pad could be reloaded, Trevor pulled back from the precipice, resuming a few more inches of his brushwork.

By the time Dominic had rounded the corner and the rising tide of Greenmount Silk had crept to the place where Trevor was perched, very little cutting in had been accomplished, yet there had been a whole lot of edging.

"Trevor, what the hell have you been doing over here? I'm running out of wall." Dominic turned abruptly to look up at Trevor, seeing his darkened cargo shorts bunched against the ladder rung and his hair sticking to his face. Trevor gasped and whirled around on the ladder in an attempt to hide his raging erection. The ladder wobbled, his paint pot jumped from the tray, and a thick ribbon of Greenmount Silk slapped wetly against Dominic's stomach and crotch. Trevor squeezed his eyes shut, willing his cock to retreat. He could hear the clang of the small can ringing against the marble tiles and the faint patter of paint dribbling from Dominic's pants to the floor.

"You son of a bitch." Dominic's voice came softly, the slow burn of a quiet rage. "Get down here."

Trevor was suddenly a forlorn child again. His father had come home from work, having learned about one of his transgressions, and had called to him from the foot of the stairs, slowly pulling his belt from its loops as he did. He slowly dismounted the ladder and turned to his mentor, searing with embarrassment over his recalcitrant cock, which stubbornly stood up to his boss.

Dominic's eyes blazed, flitting from the Trevor's tenting shorts to his face. "What the fuck has gotten into you?" His voice was low, and his words were deliberate, which was more terrifying than if he had simply flown into a rage. Trevor's legs felt like lead, his tongue like it had scaled over with drying paint. Only his quivering cock seemed free of paralysis. "Get out of here," Dominic growled.

"I--I think you're fucking hot!" The words tumbled from his mouth like ball bearings, clattering to the floor and scrabbling around the room. Dominic turned to look at him again, his brow now creased.

"You ...what?" He inclined his head toward Trevor.

Trevor let out a trembling breath and leveled his gaze. "I think you are possibly the sexiest man I've ever seen."

Dominic arched a brow. After a minute, he sighed. "You're going to clean this mess up," he gestured to the Jackson Pollock on the floor at his feet. "And I'm going to need to show you a thing or two."

Trevor looked hopeful. "Then...I'm not fired?"

Dominic clasped his hand behind Trevor's neck and steered him toward the mess. "You're not fired," he conceded. "You're horny." He gently pushed Trevor to his knees. "I guess I can't fault you for that."

Trevor peered up at him, confused. "Shouldn't I go get the spill powder?"

Dominic was inching his slimy coveralls below his waist. "Won't need that just yet. Pull your shorts down."

Trevor's cock bobbed excitedly and shoved harder against the stretching fabric below his waist, but his eyes grew wide. "Why? What are you going to do?"

Dominic crouched beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder. Trevor could feel the intense heat radiating from him through his t-shirt. "Look, Trevor. I figure we've got two problems here. If we take care of one, we'll resolve the other." He placed his hand over the bulge. "Capiche?" Trevor blinked. Dominic chuckled softly. "Do you trust me?" Trevor slowly nodded as Dominic began to unbutton his shorts.

After edging for the last thirty minutes, just the pressure of Dominic's fingers on his groin was enough to send him through the roof. He abruptly sucked in a breath, and Dominic glanced at him. "Settle down," he said firmly. "How many times do I have to tell you that speed isn't everything?" He pulled down Trevor's fly, the shorts heaving a cottony sigh. "Technique is a more valuable asset."

"I thought you were straight," Trevor murmured as his shorts were eased from his hips. Dominic paused and looked at him with narrowed eyes. "The phone," Trevor fumbled in explanation. "I've heard you talk to that woman--Julie."

Dominic's tone was flat. "I've been a painter for years. I've worked in dozens of churches." He leaned into Trevor's ear and whispered, "but that doesn't make me a priest." He darted his tongue into the ear. Trevor shuddered with pleasure from the moist probe. "Down," Dominic commanded. "Mop this up."

Trevor glanced at the spilt paint before him. It looked like pale yellow-green pancakes on a checkered griddle. He lowered himself prone over the small viscous pools, settling his body onto the cool of the marble floor. The paint was eagerly lapped up by the fibers of his briefs and t-shirt. In moments, his groin was transformed into a bowed head of a daisy, his blooming cock crowned in pollen, white cotton petals stretching back to his pelvis. He could feel the paint seeping through, mingling with his own slippery excitement.

He also felt the gentle, cool pat, pat, pat of paint drips on his ass, like a damp finger keeping the beat to music he couldn't perceive. A sound like smacking lips came from above him. He looked over his shoulder and saw the rainbow-stippled toe of Dominic's Jordan beside him, the white Dickies crunched around his ankle. His eyes traveled up the leg, past the glistening, glacial, rolling movement of the spattered paint, to Dominic's crotch. His hand was shining yellow-green, working a shining yellow-green cock in a slow, slurping massage.

"Turn around," he ordered.

Trevor looked across the expanse of floor at rumpled edge of the canvas drop cloth. Like the white cliffs of Dover, he thought. Dominic pressed onto him, surrounding him with his heat and sweat. Trevor felt the head of his daisy glide forward on the pocked marble tile. To his left, Dominic's thick, tan wrist pushed against the floor. The black mirrored square of his watch announced the closure of a pink movement ring. To his right, paint covered fingers like unripe baby bananas splayed beside him on the tile. A much bigger banana, it seemed, was nestling between his ass checks, plowing a slick v in his underwear.

"Oh, fuck!" Trevor hissed. The sliding of his cock in the paint beneath him had been one thing, but the the pressure of his cheeks spreading around Dominic was unexpected and exquisite.

"You wait." Dominic's clipped insistence was hot and moist on the back of Trevor's neck. Trevor felt the energy aching to leave him as he was pushed into floor again and again, the sounds of flesh slipping through wet paint like a spoon parting a bowlful of buttery noodles. His penis and his nipples were standing at attention and rigid, as though release threatened to tear through them, but the pressure of Dominic's pumping against his anus seemed to draw the pleasure back inward. Trevor sensed it gather in his core, a roiling ball of molten want.

Dominic's slick fingers left the floor, leaving childlike art behind. "Now," he began as slimy fingertips dove inside Trevor's waistband, "I want you to take a deep breath and hold it." A small groan escaped from Trevor's throat. "Breathe and hold it, Trevor," he demanded. Trevor unwillingly complied, feeling there was no room left within him for oxygen. As his lungs filled and searing ball fizzled and pulsed, Dominic pushed inside him.

Trevor's eyes went wild and his neck arched back. He took in a fleeting view the half coated foyer walls, gray and green. They flickered and shifted as he was split down the middle like a great hunk of oak, fibrous sprinters separating around the axe head descending through him. The air left him in a shuddering cry, his lungs having determined there was indeed no room left. Dominic stilled, and then there was nothing except the slight quiver of his breath. After a moment, Trevor felt himself begin to unfurl, accepting the intrusion, his body knitting itself back together around it.

Dominic sensed this, too. "Okay," he panted. "Hold on. And don't you dare cum." The seething sphere inside Trevor bubbled at the very suggestion. Dominic's right hand splatted back to the floor, and he began to move within Trevor. Slowly at first. Testing, probing. Trevor felt the slithering sensation beneath him resume as the paint on the floor coated him. But this was not what threatened to open him wide. It was Dominic, jabbing at the molten ball within him repeatedly. It quaked and sloshed, swelling ever larger. It wouldn't hold its shape much longer. Trevor moaned in anticipation of its destruction.

"No!" Dominic cried. "You fucking wait!" His movements became frenzied. His knees slid on the slick marble, his bare back arching. Trevor could feel his own body's ability to contain the swirling energy failing as it was repeatedly compressed and released, growing in size with each disturbance.

He was the fighting tuna. Dominic had caught him.

All at once, Dominic went rigid. "Now!" His cry sounded off the coved ceiling and blossomed soft and warm within Trevor, filling him. The roiling mass of pent up want burst inside him, the released energy coursing through him and seeking escape, finding only one way out. Trevor writhed and whimpered as it flew from him. The smeared paint that coated the tile shot through with pearlescent trails.

Dominic collapsed onto Trevor, who rested his forehead on the cool floor. Trevor's chest heaved as his body expelled the last of the unleashed want, his cock and legs pulsing as every last beautiful drop was scraped from his insides. Finally, the tuna thrashed on the deck no more. All that was left was for Mrs. Hollingsworth to rattle her keys in the front door, walk in, and find his corpse on the harlequin floor, just as Rob had three years before. But the sound didn't come.

Outside, the traffic whispered by on the street, brief winks of sunlit chrome flashing in the half-painted foyer. Dominic pulled back and stood, and Trevor felt himself deflate around the vacuum he left behind.

"Now, don't ever let me catch you edging on a ladder like that again," he scolded breathlessly. "You've been taught technique, and I expect you to use it."

Trevor rolled over and looked up at Dominic, whose saturated coveralls now hung off his waist like limp kelp leaves. "Yes, boss," he said weakly. "But don't you mean cutting in?"

"I said 'edging,'" he replied sternly. "And if you don't know how to do something, you need to ask. That's how the apprentice-mentor relationship works." He inclined his head toward him. "Are we clear?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Alright then." He picked up his t-shirt from the floor and tossed it at Trevor. "Better clean yourself or you're going to feel like you were pegged by Benjamin Moore. Fresh coveralls and spill powder are in the van. Deal with this fucking mess, and then I want you back on that ladder."

Trevor pulled his shorts, slick and heavy, back up to his waist and buttoned them as he made his way to the van. By the time he returned, a bag of powder and two sets of coveralls in his hands, Dominic had resumed rolling sharp peaks on the wall over the doorway. Up and down, like sticky pale green heartbeats. And next to the doorframe, Dominic's freshly rolled paint lay on top of Trevor's brushwork, the two melding into a seamless expanse of fresh, new color.