The Peter Principle Ch. 01

This little story features only characters over the age of 18. Copyright is reserved to Vicky Malacca, 2021 and Literotica. Please consider a generous donation to support their exciting and charitable work.

- Vicky

The Peter Principle

I had been trying to place an ad in the Blade, the local gay paper. It had worked for me before. Not the Blade, actually, one of the sleazy little fuck books that exist for guys to get together without having to go to a bar and actually meet face to face with someone. Someone with hungry eyes. It is easier at home, or over the phone. Scrolling through the possibilities. And it is easier to place an ad than it is to answer one. Placing one means that the hungry ones have to come to you. It is much easier, if you craft it right. You have the sample universe, all seemingly willing. It works, even for the faint of heart. I know. That is how I met Rick, my on-again, off-again lover. But for now it was off. He had moved to Rehobeth with his old on-again, off-again lover and I was high and dry.

So, I was horny a couple weeks ago, just like I am now. I am just out of the closet and I have moved out and can actually do what I want to do. I decided to go to DC from Maryland on a lazy Sunday afternoon, have a couple beers and survey the newly-opened landscape. The need of a man is a heavy longing, sometime. It has always been with me, sometimes near, and sometimes at a distance. But it has always been there. I suppose that my marriage, which I worked at for around seven years and put up with for twenty, and the amount of time I spent on the career kept me safe. That, or my timidity, saved my life. It spanned the time when the AIDS plague first erupted, and then spread, killing a whole generation of young men in their prime.

I was on the sidelines then, jerking off. But I often thought about it. Both the death part and the joy of submitting to a fundamental need that sometimes was so powerful it drove me to the streets. To look, but not to act. The Internet was a godsend, but it only served to fan the flames.

This afternoon I dressed carefully. Tight jeans, moccasins, nice soft turtleneck. An old Levi jacket to go over the top. I practiced The Walk. Not a sashay, but one free of straight-ahead male determination. A little whimsical. I even let my wrists flop a little when I smoked. It was fun. It felt nice and liberating to let the hard linear lines fade out of my posture. Soften. But I wasn't going to go out and mince around. I usually go places and chicken out at the last moment. But maybe this would be different. I always thought that. I checked myself, I looked good, and drove down to the Metro station.

I didn't want to drive into the city. You can't tell where to park. The traffic is madness. And if you wind up a little drunk and in trouble, you could lose the car altogether. So the Metro is the way to go. You are on foot, anonymous. No threat to public order at the wheel of potential vehicular manslaughter. I had to take the Yellow Line to get across the Potomac, but that wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go. I was headed for Dupont Circle, heart of gay life in the District. To do that I had to transfer to the Red Line at Metro Center. I was preparing to get off the train I was standing, facing the rear of the car, leaning against a pole. I realized with a start that the dark-haired young man facing the rear of the car was someone I knew.

In fact, I knew him better than he had any idea. I had been a member of the promotion panel that had decided he didn't have a future with the Company. I had fought for him, fought as hard as I could. But I found where I was in the hierarchy of the Company. In the end it came down to him and another. The other guy had a more powerful patron. The panel deliberated hard and picked the other.

To my growing horror I realized that senior management was going to work its way with me. I was not only the one who couldn't save him, I was going to have to be the one who told him, since he worked in my Division. It was awful, as awful as anything I have ever done. But I wrapped myself in the cloak of the Company and I told it as straight as I could, cushioning where I could. But I told him it was honest, the decision was based on the record of annual evaluations, and he had just got a bad break. It still didn't go well. He was bitterly disappointed, and he left the office that day, saying "Fuck the two weeks, and fuck you."

This afternoon he sat in the first row of seats. His slim body was slumped back in the seat, his eyes were closed in contemplation. His youthful features were relaxed, distant. His dark hair was short and combed to the side. He wore a dark windbreaker and dark trousers. I wondered where he was going. And the thought occurred to me that he might be going to Dupont Circle on an outing like mine.

The loudspeaker announced: "Metro Center, transfer point for the Red Line. Doors opening on the left."

I turned to face the front of the car, hoping he would not recognize me. The train glided to a halt and the doors whooshed open. I paused with the intent of allowing the other passengers to clear the car onto the platform.

It was not to be. I could not wait long, or stay to the next station without heading too far toward Union Station. When I turned to exit I discovered he had hung back. His brown eyes met mine directly.

"Hello, Eddie" I said. I offered my hand to him as we stepped from the car and walked across the decorative granite paving of the platform. His hand was soft but his grip was firm.

"Hi, Rob!" he responded. He did not seem to recall the anger he felt the last time I saw him. In fact, he seemed almost pleased to see me. "What are you doing this afternoon?"

I answered vaguely. "Just headed Uptown, maybe the Zoo." The Red Line platform was a level above us, and I can never remember which escalator to take to hit the Northbound track. "Lovely afternoon for i." He said. I didn't ask where he was going. The moment hung, gently, and he gave a little wave and moved down the platform. I went the other way, studied the track information on a pillar and realized I had to turn around and follow him. The platform was dotted with day-trippers, locals and tourists, but despite the beauty of the day on the surface above the crowds reflected the general unease about life after 9-11. I flowed along behind a family with a stroller and gave them space as they lifted the child out of the seat to accommodate the moving stairs.

I turned the corner to the Northbound platform, glancing up to see if Eddie was waiting there. He wasn't, and I found a place along the concrete barrier to lean and look up at the graceful barrel vault of the station's roof. The concrete was cool and gray. I have always loved the spare geometric pattern that unifies the architecture of the system. There was a moderate crowd, indicating a train would be along shortly.

Eddie hurried along the platform in front of me. This time he only glanced up, moving quickly, as though he had an important destination further along the waiting area. I was relieved. I was not out at the office and was not interested in sharing my private life with the company. I was glad not to have to make small talk, or pretend I was not going where I was. It was apparent that he felt the same way. An interesting data point. Still, I resolved to go one stop beyond the circle, to the Zoo, and walk back. Enjoy the sunshine I said to myself, actually just wanted to not share my intentions with someone who knew who I was. I was not ready to acknowledge publicly my private self.

Privately I had worked it out. There were no contradictions. I liked sex. And there was heaviness in my loins that only could be satisfied by the touch of a man.

And what exactly were my intentions today? I mulled that one as the lights on the platform edge began to pulse and the northbound train arrived. It was to find the happy hour prices at some gay clubs and watch some football. See what developed. I was not here to find sex, through the heaviness in my loins indicated that I could. To meet someone? Perhaps, though I told myself I was not in the market for anonymous sex. I was still basically a monogamous creature, but I was also well aware of my predilection to be a tramp. Two stops and we passed Dupont. I didn't see Eddie get off, though he could have. I rose at the Zoo stop and walked out of the station into the brilliant Fall light. There were still leaves on the trees, and the light was lowering. As I crossed the bridge over Rock Creek Park I paused to drink in the beauty of the foliage, this strange intrusion of the wild into the city. I walked down Connecticut Avenue and cut over at 18th Street past the cute little row houses. Some of the clubs I thought I might try were located there.

I passed the Club Chaos, down in the basement, where the Sunday feature is a drag show of grotesque female impersonators. I met someone nice there once, a quiet-spoken African American with an astonishing penis, but I was not up to the glare today. I was looking for something more sedate, something closer to myself. I wound up in a quiet café, drinking Rolling Rock beer and listening to a handsome young man who was drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes. He was very drunk, considering the hour, and equally garrulous. It was a pleasant way to pass the time. I contemplated what it would be like to make love with him, but it was clear that he was a lost soul and trouble on two legs. At length I tired of having the same discussion over and over, unable to finish a thread of conversation, or looping back around to the beginning of one again. Finally, I left him to his whiskey and made my way to the Metro station, intending to head home on an empty train before the night fell. I was tired and the beers I had drunk just made me edgier.

The feeling in the pit of my stomach had not abated and I knew I was going to have to masturbate that night. I would lie in the darkness of my bed, alone, and caress myself, gradually stroking harder, an image of a slim young man before my closed eyes. I would rise to completion, the skin of my member slick with the first juice and then climax, sowing my seed across my belly. I would run a finger through the pool and bring it to my lips, tasting my pearly deposit, stringy and sweet and imagined it was someone else's. I would rub it into my skin until it became sticky, lying languorous before the sleep came, feeling sated but empty at the prospect of sleeping alone.

I walked to the south Metro entrance on Connecticut Avenue in the lowering rays of the sun, the shadows now dark and elongated. I stood on the long moving staircase to take me down to the tracks. There was a crowd on the upward escalator, which meant I had missed a train. At this hour on a weekend the trains only came every ten minutes or so, so there was no hurry. The encounter with Eddie coming to the City intrigued me. Was he on the same sort of mission as I was? Was he gay, too? The thought of his dark eyes made me stiffen. What were his thoughts of me? The thought of pressing myself against his slim body, the fine dark hairs covering his pale skin brought me into a reverie on the moving stairs. I discreetly reached down to smooth my growing erection into the right leg of my jeans. I got to the turnstile and fed in my ticket. It processed it and I peered up in the cool dim light to see which side of the platform would take me south. It was the escalator to the right, and I tucked the ticket back in my wallet as I walked slowly toward it. There was no rush and looking down on the platform I could see only a few figures waiting. No rush to get there. Except for one thing.

There was a slim figure in a dark windbreaker waiting alone. It was Eddie. I panicked briefly. There was no doubt he would notice me, and there was no way to pretend I was not exactly where I was. It was a short escalator, and my decision was made for me. I walked off the end and walked straight toward him.

"Hello again, Eddie. Small world."

"Yes it is, Rob. How was the Zoo?"

"Not bad. I didn't go in. I walked back down Connecticut, over the Rock Creek Park. It was beautiful. And it is downhill all the way." I trailed off, having said too much. He smiled at me. "What about you, did you get what you were looking for?"

"No" he said, smiling, "Just looking around. Are you headed back to Maryland?"

"Yeah. I left my car at Silver Springs, in the garage." He smiled again.

"That's funny. That is where I am living now. I got an efficiency in one of the towers after I had to leave the Firm. Downsized, you know? Do you remember"

I winced. I had hoped after our earlier encounter that he was not still dwelling on that. But it was pretty clear that he was. I didn't want to go back over that ground, but it was something to talk about that avoided why we both were there. "I am so sorry about that. I hated to have to be the one to tell you. It was very hard."

"Not as hard as finding out that I wasn't worth keeping on the payroll" he said. "I really held a grudge for a while. In fact, I took it personally that it was you that told me. I thought you were a friend."

I was flustered. I didn't know he thought about me that way, or knew that I had sometimes found myself gazing at him as he walked through the cubical farm where we worked. I wondered what he would have thought if he knew I had a crush on him then? "I could have been a friend, Eddie. And I still can be." I said hopefully. He looked at me sideways and I noticed how his thick lashes curled up from his dark eyes. He looked at me for a moment and smiled.

"OK. I know now that it was all for the best. I am going back to law school and fully intend to sue those bastards you work for before it is all over. I am going to be their worst nightmare." I shivered a little, not wanting to be part of a corporate vendetta. He smiled again. "Don't worry. I won't be coming after you. At least not that way." I wondered exactly what he meant by that, and then the circular lights began to flash on the platform's edge, signaling that a train was entering the station. We turned to watch the train glide to a stop with the nearest doors precisely equidistant from where we were standing. He moved first, to his right and I followed him. It was funny. He was younger by almost a decade, but he had a commanding way about him. Maybe that is what got him in trouble at the company, too assertive with management.

The car was nearly empty and he casually slumped into the first pair of seats facing backward. I could have sat in the parallel seat by the door but I didn't. I sat down next to him. He looked at me confidently and I had to look down at my lap. We talked about the people still at the company, the ones he liked and the ones he did not. Eddie had some strong opinions about the Division VP, who was clearly on his way up, and we bantered back and forth about office politics.

"You are never going to get there, Rob. You are at your Peter Principle. You have risen one layer higher than you actually should be." I bristled at that and he smiled. "Calm down, take it easy. I just meant that you are a sensitive guy, a great financial analyst. You weren't cut out to be a middle-manager. I knew that when I saw how bad you felt about telling me I was canned."

I knew he had a point, and sighed. "I think you are right. I am more comfortable when I'm told what is expected of me and then I can just go ahead and get the job done. I really don't like having to tell people what to do." I looked out the window at the darkness of the tunnel.

"I thought so. We actually could have been a great team, in the right combination. Let me do the managing and let you do the creative stuff." We came into a station and a couple teenagers got on. They walked by us and I suddenly was aware of how my leg felt touching his. I don't know if he felt what I felt, the electricity. He just kept up a steady banter, leaving the office behind and moving on to the Redskins and politicians, both of which we agreed on. They sucked. We laughed and I chattered away, a little giddy. We changed trains and the time passed quickly as we pulled into the station at Silver Springs. We got off the train and walked up the platform to the escalator out. Past the turnstile I fished my car keys out of my pocket and jingled them in my hand. I was hoping he might ask me up to his place for a drink, see if this was going somewhere or if this was just a figment of my imagination. I was afraid to offend him and if I was wrong, he would have something else to use in his eventual contest with the company.

"Where is your car?" he asked.

"Level 4 in the structure. Can I give you a lift home?"

"No, that's OK. I'm pretty close and there is somebody there. But I'll walk you to the car." I blinked, wondering if he had a girlfriend living with him. I had been wrong, and was both pleased and disconcerted that I had not compromised myself. This was just buddy stuff. I was happy he would be with me a little while longer, and I could think of him and masturbate when I got home. We left the station and took the elevator up to the fourth level of the parking structure. It was Sunday-empty and my car looked forlorn parked by a pillar.

"Well," I said, "Thanks for the great Metro ride. I enjoyed talking to you. Really."

"That's OK, it was good to catch up. I need to let that part of my career go. It was for the best." He paused, then he said: "There is something you could do for me, though."

"Anything. Pleased to help anyway I can." I wondered if he wanted a recommendation, or an endorsement of some kind. Something to make up for what I had done to him on behalf of the Firm.

"Good. Why don't you get in the car..." I looked at him and he was smiling an innocent sort of smile. I clicked the automatic opener on my key chain twice and the light came on inside and the door locks popped up. I walked to the driver's side of my Lexus and he walked around to the passenger's side and opened the door. I opened the door and slid in. I looked over at him expectantly.

"Well, do you want a ride after all?"

"No" he said. "I want you to do what you went downtown to do."

"What do you mean, Eddie?"

"I want you to suck my cock."

The silence was thick and my heart was hammering. I guess I'm not as slick as I think I am sometimes. Eddie had me cold. "OK," I said.

"Don't be so enthusiastic. I knew you wouldn't do anything if I didn't tell you to do it. That is why you will never be a VP. Peter principle. So, let's get to what I think you are good at. Servicing Peter. Why don't you unzip me?" I looked around the deserted parking garage and swallowed. It was a public place. I felt suddenly vulnerable and yet I wanted to make him happy and I wanted him badly.

"OK" I said again. I leaned over the console and reached for his belt. I pulled the tongue out of the restraining loop and unbuckled it. He moved his hips to accommodate me as I unbuttoned the top of his slacks. The sound the zipper made as I ran it down seemed deafening, and I drank in the aroma of him. I could see he was wearing colored briefs and the outline of his shaft was straining at the fabric. There was a dark spot near the tip where he had begun his process and I was pleased to see that he was aroused and wanted me. I wasn't completely comfortable in this position. I have had sex in public before but it made me nervous. The risk of compromise could really screw me up at the office. But Eddie's smell was rich, almost intoxicating. Maybe I could get him off quickly. I kissed the fabric of his briefs, teasing the tip beneath.

Eddie breathed a sigh. "Good start, Rob. Now get me out of these so you can work." He squirmed his hips and I pulled the top of his slacks down so I could get at the waistband of his briefs. I did not believe the size of his flagpole as it emerged. It was far more than I could take without a lot of work. From bas to tip it must have been fully eight inches, but very fat, tapering to the end. The tip was approachable, smaller than the bulk of the shaft. His smell was pungent, cologne and sweat and musk. I licked the tip, pleased that there was already slimy pre-cum in the slit. Then I opened my lips and let the tip slip in, moistening it with my saliva until he filled my mouth.