I lay facing Maverick, letting my body cool down after lovemaking, moving my head occasionally to kiss him. Shaw was spending the evening with Jack.
Maverick's lips curled into a smile as he stroked my hair. "Can you believe it? Eight weeks from tomorrow." The Dean had just informed Maverick of the date late that afternoon, and had assured him that he had already invited his father and brother, mailing them guest passes.
I kissed him again. "You don't need all that time to get yourself ready, I hope. We still have the one last party show to do in a few weeks."
Maverick gave me a tiny headshake. "I can wait until after that to start getting my head in the right space. Have you started checking into your own..." He stopped suddenly, frowning, looking into my eyes.
I stopped breathing, knowing why Maverick was suddenly silent.
Maverick, still frowning, asked, "You were going to tell me, right?"
I didn't need to ask what Maverick was talking about, or how he had known. There'd been some tiny physical reaction, at the moment when Maverick had asked about my hanging. Few of the Hanging Boys were as skilled as Maverick at reading body language, especially of the one person he knew better than anyone else in the world. "Of course, honey. I've been trying to work out how to say it."
"Is it because of our boys? They're all really coming along fast. Especially Holden."
I nodded, blinking back a tear. "I know. But Hamish won't be here for another seven months. I had to offer to stay. The Dean wasn't going for this whole thing with Holden and Hamish otherwise."
Maverick looked at me seriously. "So are you okay with this? It feels like you are." Reading again. "You can really wait that long? I don't think I could."
I put my arms around my lover, squeezing him tight. "I am okay. It's not like I don't get to hang at all. The noose will be out there waiting for me. It's hard to take something you've chased after for years and push it farther away, but it's still going to be there. The hardest part is..." The tear at last spilled from my eye. "I was worried you might think I'm... insulting you. To say I'm going to stay on so long after you're gone."
Maverick's eyes widened. I saw that something had finally come out of my mouth before Maverick could read it. "Oh, honey, no! No! Nothing like that! Listen..." Maverick looked away for a moment, searching for the right words, finding them at last, giving me an intense look as only Maverick could. "There are a lot of things I trust. I trust the noose. I trust my skills. And you taught me a long time ago... I have to trust my partner. And I do, I trust you completely. I trust you for a lot of things, but most of all, I trust you always to do the right thing. That's what teaches me what the right thing is. And you believe this is the right thing. I can tell you do. If you think it's right, that's always going to be enough for me."
The single tear became a flood. My throat was suddenly so tight I couldn't believe there wasn't a rope around it. I choked out, "I love you, Maverick."
The sudden return of Maverick's smile made his face more beautiful than ever. "And I love you, Wynn." He kissed me, hard.
We made love again, with twice the passion of our earlier session.
The Dean rolled his eyes, but was smiling. "You want to communicate with Hamish? You know we don't allow communication between our First Year boys and their families. That would include boys whose First Year status is... in suspended animation, as it were."
I knew he was referring to Holden. I wasn't sure I wanted to bring this up. "Ummm... I did see my brother when I was a First Year." It always irritated me to discuss Andrew for any reason.
"There's a difference. He's a club member."
The one stain on the Academy's reputation, in my view. "Anyway, this wouldn't be a personal communication, Sir. And not from Holden himself. I could request to take this information to him myself, on my own, but I'd like to keep it even less personal than that. This would be in the nature of the Academy itself giving some advice to a potential student. Just in an institutional way. In the form of a letter."
"We've never done that before either."
"I know, Sir, but I'm thinking it's pretty well-established now that this is a unique case. And I can give you the usual justification that this will help the two of them get their act together sooner once Hamish arrives here."
The Dean smiled again. "I suspected as much. What would the letter say?"
"I have a draft here, but let me describe it first, so you can see why everything is in there. For one thing, you'll see there's no proprietary information in it. No giving away any Academy secrets. There are basically just three things we need Hamish to work on.
"One is a reading list. About half of what we have Holden reading is publicly available. Some of the things we'd picked out for him, it turned out he'd already read them, and Hamish has too, but not all of them. So we've put together a list of books, available on the outside, that Hamish hasn't read, and it would save time if he read them before he got here.
"The second thing is a physical exercise program. Just like all of the other students here, we've got Holden doing a lot of conditioning in the gym. Obviously we'd like to avoid his body getting noticeably different from Hamish's, and there's no reason why it should, because Hamish could be doing the same exercises at home.
"And then finally, there's something Hamish can do in preparation for doing party shows. It's our secret, mine and Maverick's, but it actually only helps specifically for that one purpose. When Maverick and I started training to do the shows, we did hanging exercises carrying extra weight — eventually we got to where we could hang while carrying a hundred extra pounds. And we needed that for the kind of hanging he and I do together, where we alternate holding the other up so he can breathe — but it's not something helpful for the standard type of hanging. You know how studies have shown that practicing with extra weight doesn't really help for normal hanging techniques, beyond what the standard neck-trainer does. So if, for whatever reason, Hamish told anybody what he was doing, it would actually be kind of misleading, because people would say, Aha! So that's the Hanging Boy secret! And it's really not! It's just something Hamish needs to do, and it wouldn't help anybody else." I leaned forward. "And the point is, he'd be ready to start working on choreography as soon as he gets here."
The Dean nodded, already having known that was coming, and held out his hand. I handed over the letter. He sat patiently as he read it — some parts several times, it appeared.
At last he nodded. "I'm going to want to reword this, to make it more clear that it doesn't imply an offer of admission, and perhaps to hint at the need for some discretion on his part. But I'll leave intact the descriptions of the program he should be following."
I gave him a huge grin. "Yes, Sir! And is there any possibility Holden could sign it at the bottom?"
The Dean chuckled. "Of course not. And you're just giving me a chance to assert authority by saying 'no', aren't you?"
I felt myself reddening. "I just wanted to try, Sir."
Marcus gave me a kiss as he pulled the door closed, then held Zuchter's hand as they trotted down the hallway toward their class. I waved after them, then walked more slowly back toward my room.
Maverick and Holden were there, sitting on the bed, looking at the television, where Maverick was running a video of a First Year boys' hanging class from several years ago. Holden's concentration on the screen was so intense that I wasn't sure he'd noticed me coming in.
Holden pointed at the screen. "I think his left leg is unbalancing him. He's swinging it out too far."
Maverick nodded. "So what would you do?"
Holden fingered his lower lip, considering the question, still watching the boy on the screen. "Maybe tap at his foot every time he swings it out like that, to make him conscious of doing it."
I smiled, remembering Maverick administering a very similar cure to Wallace once.
Maverick used the remote to move the tape ahead to the next boy. Again, Holden watched the screen with a very Maverick-like intensity. At last he looked at Maverick and said tentatively, "He's probably okay?"
Holden breathed an audible sigh of relief when Maverick nodded. "For his level of development, anyway." Maverick raised the remote again. "Let's skip over the next boy. He's okay too." The boy wriggled on the screen in fast motion, and Maverick slowed the tape to normal speed as another boy started.
Holden leaned forward, and quickly leaned back. "That's easy. He's not turning his head enough. You could..."
Maverick held up a hand to stop him. "Okay, but remember, always look at the boy's whole body. When there's a problem in one place, it could be caused somewhere else."
Holden nodded and leaned forward to watch the screen again. As the boy finished, Holden looked helplessly at Maverick. "Could you run it again?"
Maverick nodded and rewound the tape. Holden leaned even farther forward to watch the boy again, almost unblinking. Suddenly he bounced on the bed excitedly. "Oh, yeah! He's got his hands too high up his back! It's making his shoulders hunch and he can't turn his head properly. You could give him a crotch rope to hold them down..." He frowned, and shook his head. "He's too inexperienced, he doesn't need that distraction." He thought a little longer, as Maverick rewound the tape and showed the boy again. Holden sat up again. "You could tie a thread between his elbows, so he couldn't separate them more than that distance. Tell him to try not to break the thread. That would keep his hands down." He grinned at Maverick. "Okay?"
Maverick laughed and patted Holden's back. "Nice job. I've got that class to go teach. Just relax a minute while I talk to Wynn."
Maverick guided me out of the room, closed the door, and said barely audibly, his eyes alight, "Most underclass boys have a hard time picking out flaws in another boy's form. I tried this same exercise with Marcus and Zuchter. Together. They got over half of them, which was really good. Holden caught all of them, and that thing with the thread... that might work better than what I was going to say."
I grinned, and whispered, "That's great! We knew he was special. See you in awhile, honey." I kissed Maverick, waved goodbye to him, and opened the door. Holden had rewound the tape to the beginning and was restoring it to its case. He looked up and smiled. "Hi, Wynn. That was fun."
I smiled back. "Maverick says you're doing really well. Sit back down a minute. I've got something else to talk to you about."
Holden nodded and sat on the bed again, waiting.
I began, "I know you haven't been in classes, but you've probably heard the First Years talking about this. Their first party is coming up in a few weeks. Now, you're not a member of the class, but I asked the Dean, and he left it up to me to decide whether an extra year of parties would be helpful to you. So I need to figure that out... You know what I'm talking about, right? What the students do at parties?"
Holden nodded. "Oh! Sure. There's a little about that on the Web site. I was..." Holden suddenly looked slightly uncomfortable. "I'd been figuring, after you got me the extra year to wait for Hamish, that that would be one of the things we could do together. Him and me."
I frowned. "Together, as in working the same bedroom?"
Holden nodded again. "I mean, I was hoping."
I shook my head. "Maybe somewhere along the way, later, but not at the start. I'm not even going to ask the Dean about that. Every Hanging Boy has to demonstrate he can provide sexual services by himself. Maverick and I have worked together a few times, when it worked out that way at auctions, but at first the Dean wouldn't let us. Not until he was sure about our solo skills."
Clouds of concern began billowing in my mind. I'd never seen Holden unsure of himself before. I had quickly become accustomed to thinking of Holden as another Maverick, superior in every facet of a Hanging Boy's life. Maverick, along with everything else he did, always drew outstanding reviews from club members he entertained privately at parties. I'd been assuming Holden would share that skill as well. "Holden... you've gone to the clubs around town, right? To meet sex partners?"
"Oh, for sure! Hamish and me knew that was one of the things we'd need to be good at, for the Academy, so we went once or twice a week. We'd hook up with a boy, or with a girl if it was a mixed club, and, you know, learn from experience. We read some books, too, of course. And watched videos."
I was about to say I was doubtful about the idea of picking up much practical information on the subject from books, but was suddenly struck by Holden's wording, as I played it back in my head. We'd hook up with a boy. Singular. My frown deepened. "Holden... Have you ever had one-on-one sex with anyone other than Hamish?"
Holden bit his lip and shook his head, saying in a tiny voice, "No."
I suddenly realized I was being unfair to Holden. I was scaring Holden, making him feel as if he had done something wrong in coming to the Academy with less than the usual amount of experience with sex. It was true that any Hanging Boy needed to be ready to handle clients who had any number of different sexual preferences, in one-on-one situations, and that Holden's one-on-one sexual history was far from sufficiently varied. But the Academy was a place of learning. You didn't have to arrive already knowing everything. That's why they had classes. Including sex classes. I reached out and covered one of Holden's hands with mine, and smiled. "Listen, Holden, I'm not mad at you. I just got a little surprised for a minute. We could wait on the parties until next year..."
Holden shook his head, a determined look suddenly on his face. "No, I want to do it."
I blinked. "There's no reason we couldn't wait, it's really okay..."
The intense Maverick-look was in Holden's eyes again. "Wynn, I'll do anything I need to, to be a Hanging Boy. The Dean could tell me I need to jump off the roof, and I'd head for the stairs as soon as he said it."
I looked at him wide-eyed. "Ahhh... Well, that won't be a requirement, I'm pretty sure. But... so you do want to go to the party?"
Holden nodded his head emphatically.
I was silent for a time, considerations swirling around in my head. One of them finally came to the fore. "If I'm going to tell Wallace and Lucas to include you on the list for the party, I'm taking on a lot of responsibility. I'm telling them you're ready to perform and to make the club members happy." I continued thinking, my lower lip squeezed between my thumb and forefinger. Okay, I thought, first things first. I gestured at Holden. "Take off your clothes. I want to check on your grooming. I need a closer look than I've been getting when you practice hanging."
Obediently, Holden shrugged out of his shirt, kicked away his shoes, and pulled his shorts down, then his briefs, kicking them away as well.
I looked him over, lifting his arms. "Chestfur okay." I backed away, looking at Holden's fur above and below. "I don't think you need to be dyed. You might have a skin reaction to it, and I think members will like the contrast anyway, with your chest and crotch a little darker than your back. Lie back on the bed."
I considered Holden's bellyfur. Some of the boys had their bellies permanently depilated, and the club members and, later, the buyers, seemed to like it that way. Holden's bellyfur was a soft reddish orange, a little lighter than his headfur. It was medium length, very soft, and looked rather becoming. I ran my fingers lightly across it; Holden jumped slightly and giggled. In a thoughtful voice, I said, "Okay, let's keep that for now. We could still get rid of it later if the members don't like it. For the time being..." I bent down still closer, gently separating Holden's glutes with my fingers, examining the area in between. "I want you to go to the salon, and ask them to do a short trim on the fur between your cheeks."
"Okay. I could do that today, if you don't need to have me practice anything."
I thought a moment, and nodded. "Okay, but have them give you a time estimate. We need you back here by seven so you can watch Maverick and me practice for our show. Tell them just to do part of it now if it's going to take too long."
Holden's eyes lit up. "Okay. I won't miss that." He loved watching Maverick and me practice, wide-eyed throughout, asking endless questions afterward. Maverick and I worked mostly on the choreography for our upcoming show, but we also showed Holden a variety of moves from our earlier shows, demonstrating the many ways each could support the other's weight — with feet, knees, leg wrapped around waist, thigh supporting crotch, and so on.
"Good. Okay, you can sit up now." I offered my hand for Holden to pull on as he sat back upright.
As Holden reached for his briefs, I said, "Wait. I want to do one more thing."
Holden dropped his briefs back on the floor and nodded, his eyes looking directly into mine. I'm ready, whatever it is, the eyes said. That same drive to be a Hanging Boy, so strong it had allowed him to leave his other half at home during his first year at the Academy, was showing once more.
I gave him a serious look. "As I said, I'm taking on some responsibility, if I send you to a party. You haven't been in sex class, and I have to make sure you can handle yourself on the job. No," I waved my hands in a don't-worry gesture, "I don't mean I'm not going to give you any help between now and then. We've got three weeks, and that's enough time to get you ready. But I need to see where you're starting from."
I began removing my own uniform; Holden blinked in surprise as he watched. That earlier look of uncertainty was back, as he understood what he was about to have to do.
Naked now, I moved a little closer to Holden on the bed. "I'm going to be one of the club members now. Male, of course. I can't imitate all of the body parts a femme would have." I gave the ocelot a small smile, which he echoed nervously. "I won't give you a hard time. We can talk about that later. But I won't give you much help right now either. When you're in a private session with a club member, it's your job to figure out what would please them, and they won't always tell you." I let my voice grow softer as I continued, "They know that Hanging Boys have what seems like a magical ability to sense their turn-ons. We're not born with that. We learn it." Very softly now, I said, "Show me what you can do, Holden."
I knew that here I was not being unfair to Holden. I was several years older than Holden, and obviously far more sexually experienced. I also knew that Holden had probably not imagined an erotic intimacy with me. But this was exactly the sort of situation Holden must be able to handle at a party. He would find himself facing strangers of both genders, and would have to establish an instant sexual connection with them. From watching Holden try to do so now, I would know how to help him in the next few weeks.
Holden, breathing and blinking quickly, scooted closer to me on the bed, and hesitantly put a shaking left hand on my hip. I gave him an encouraging smile, and a soft sigh to let him know the touch was welcome.
The shaking gone, Holden stroked my hip for a moment, then let his hand slide over my thigh into my crotch. I opened my legs slightly, and Holden let his hand settle in, spreading his fingers slightly, barely brushing my partly-erect cock. That was good. Intimacy without immediate invasion.
At the same time, Holden leaned closer, softly kissing my chin, moving up to my cheek for another soft kiss.
As his lips reached mine, Holden suddenly put his right hand behind my head and kissed me hard, pushing his tongue into my mouth, licking my teeth and tongue, holding my head firmly and straining to push in still farther. I mmmmphed, trying to tell him to slow down. But I couldn't do so with my mouth full of tongue. Then, just as suddenly as he had invaded my mouth, Holden withdrew, letting his head drop lower, now licking my chestfur and pecs. As I regained my breath, Holden sucked in my left nipple, licking gently at first, then biting, not too painfully, before returning to sucking again. Through all of this, Holden's left hand remained lightly on my cock.
Holden moved slightly, kissing my belly, and now the style of kissing changed. It softened, just the barest touch of wet lips, followed by light sucking, during which Holden's tongue just barely flicked at my delicate bellyfur. As each tiny kiss alternated with a tiny lick, I felt a sensation flare through my body, intensifying by the second, an electrical surge beginning from the point where Holden was kissing my belly, flowing from there directly to my cock. I moaned and twitched my hips involuntarily, and the current continued to circulate. My cock was getting harder. Holden's left hand now grasped my cock lightly, moving up and down slowly.
And I completely lost track of the purpose of the exercise. I forgot my intention to sit still and let Holden try to please me. I pulled Holden upward by his shoulders. Face to face now, my lips met Holden's for the second time. With my other hand I covered the ocelot's hand in my crotch, my hips thrusting to speed up the motion of Holden's fingers on my cock. In just seconds the explosion came, shaking my entire body as I pulled Holden with me, to fall onto his side on the bed.
As the tide of orgasm washed away, I opened my eyes to see Holden's just inches away, his mouth still pressed against mine, softly now, his hand slowly pumping the last bit of semen out of me.
I tried to speak, and for the moment was unable. I finally succeeded in gasping out, "Where... where did you learn to do that?" My voice was muffled, with Holden's lips still in contact.
Holden drew back slightly, and grinned. "From books, mainly."
I blinked. "That was in a book?"
"Well, not all of it. But all those different things I was trying at the start — I was just trying to figure out what you liked. That's why my hand was there."
The explanation didn't really clear anything up. "Your hand? What do you mean?" My breathing was slowly getting back to something like normal.
"Where I was holding it, touching your inner thighs and cock. The book said I could tell whether you liked something sexually by the way your muscles were twitching there."
I struggled to sit up, wiping a few beads of sweat off my forehead as I let go of Holden. "So that was trial and error going on, at the start?"
Holden nodded. "I guess I finally found what worked." He gave me a shy-looking smile.
"That, that... kissing thing." I couldn't find a way to describe it better. "You're saying that was in a book?"
Holden laughed. "Oh, the kiss-licks? Not that, no. That's something me and Hamish do for each other. It really gets us going..."
Under my breath, I murmured, "I'll bet it does."
"...so I decided to see if you liked it, but I wanted to try some other stuff first."
I shook my head to clear it. "Okay. I think I know where we can go from here. The main thing is, there are ways you can learn to read a new sex client without the trial and error. There are some signs you can see and hear, not just pick up from touch, as soon as the situation starts to get intimate. Usually you'll be able to tell what kind of contact your client will want within the first few seconds, and take it from there. You can make adjustments after that, but often you won't need to. And..." I shook my head again, heaving a sigh. "That thing you call the kiss-lick — you'll be able to use that a lot. But not every time. Anyway, tomorrow we can start talking about the signs, and after a couple of sessions..." I grinned suddenly. "... I'm want you to try it out on Marcus and Zuchter. You haven't had sex with either of them, right?"
Holden shook his head, and suddenly laughed. "I just realized I know what you mean about seeing signs. I wasn't really thinking about it, but I can usually tell when Marcus and Zuchter are starting to get... the hots for each other. And I excuse myself then and tell them I'm going down to the library, like I do a lot anyway. Sometimes I miss the signs, but I still leave when they start petting and kissing. They've never asked me to go away, but I can tell they like being alone."
And they've seen the signs in Holden that tell them not to press him about sex, I thought. And I'll bet Holden hasn't caught any of the bondage sex sessions, or he'd probably mention it. I smiled. "Well, they're not a completely ideal place to start, because you're already kind of familiar with them, but you can try out some things you've learned. You might still get some surprises." I looked at the clock. "There should still be enough time to get something done at the salon. Like I said, just make sure you can come back by seven."
Holden nodded, and quickly put his uniform back on. He grinned. "Thank you so much, Wynn. You've just done so much for me, it's hard to say enough about how much you've helped."
I reached for Holden's hand as he turned toward the door. "Wait a second, Holden." He turned to face me again. I stood, put my arms around him, and, to his wide-eyed surprise, kissed him on the lips. "Thank you too, Holden. That felt really nice just now."
Holden kissed me back, grinning. "For me, too. More than I could imagine." Seconds later he was out the door, hurrying down toward the salon.
Three Days Later
I kissed Shaw goodbye, wished him a good class, then lay back on the bed, not needing to do anything right this minute. Maverick had spent the night in Jack's room, and was already in class by now. It was a rare moment of quiet for me. I opened one eye at the sound of the knock on the door. "Come in."
Holden peeked in, the usual grin on his face, quickly turning apologetic. "I didn't know you were asleep. I'll come back."
I smiled. Holden was obviously excited about something. "Not asleep, just resting. Tell me what's up." I laced my fingers behind my head, eager to hear.
Holden closed the door, sat in a chair facing the bed, and eagerly blurted, "I did Zuchter and Marcus last night!"
I sat up. "That's great, Holden. You mean, a threesome?"
Holden shook his head. "Separately."
"Now remember, it's not just supposed to be sex. You're supposed to be using what I've been telling you."
Holden's face was alight. "Oh, I did, I did! It was so cool! We were all on the bed, watching a movie. I was next to Zuchter, and Marcus was on the other side. There was a part in the movie where we all laughed, and I kind of slapped Zuchter's elbow while we were laughing, and then I just kept my hand there and looked at him. Looking like... well, you know what I mean."
I laughed. "Oh, yeah."
"Anyway, in a minute we were kissing. Marcus just kind of scooted away, to give us room. And, before we went past kissing, I started getting the weirdest feeling about Zuchter."
I wrinkled my brow. "Feeling like what?" I was pretty sure I knew what it was.
"Well, you know how you were explaining about the Control dimension, and the signs of whether your client wants to take charge, or wants you to do it? I had a feeling I knew what you meant, and... I thought I might be misreading it, but the signs I was getting said Zuchter was way, way at the end of the scale. Like it went past him just wanting me in charge, he wanted me to take complete, total control of his body. The feeling just got stronger, and I felt surer I was right. So I started taking his clothes off first, before I did mine. I pushed him down onto his back — Marcus was totally off the bed by this time, just watching us — and I got on top of Zuchter, and I took hold of his wrists and held them pinned behind his head. Then I used my legs, like scissors, squeezing his knees between mine, and I crossed my ankles over his, so he couldn't move his legs at all. Then I saw I could hold his head still by squeezing my forearms against the sides, and when I kissed him again I pushed my tongue way inside his mouth and kept it there, so he couldn't talk. I knew by that time I was right, because he's a little bigger than I am, and he could have just pushed me off if he tried hard enough, or at least bit my tongue, but he didn't. He just sucked on my tongue and made this muffled moaning sound, and wiggled under me.
"Anyway, I was using all my hands and feet already, and I realized I didn't have any way to rub his cock. But it didn't matter! He was getting so excited, wriggling and moaning, and he came in like thirty seconds!
"And — this was so funny — Marcus was sitting in a chair now, just shaking his head and gawking at us, and he said, 'I never thought of that! I just always use ropes!' And it hit me that that must be how they always do it, with Marcus tying him up! I mean, I always could see the rope marks on Zuchter's wrists and ankles, but I just assumed it was from hanging practice; he mostly does it with his feet tied together."
I tried to keep a straight face and nod wisely, not wanting to say what I was thinking. It had taken Maverick longer than that to figure out what Zuchter wanted. I was stunned.
"Afterwards Zuchter was so sweet, and after he sat up he kept holding me, and thanking me, and kissing me, and it felt really nice.
"Then Marcus took off his clothes, and came up on the bed with us. He started rubbing his hand along my back, and Zuchter just grinned and backed away. In a minute, I was kissing Marcus.
"And I knew I was getting totally different signs from him — not just about control, but everything, especially in the Giving/Taking dimension. Like he's really happiest when he knows he's making his partner feel good..."
I nodded. I knew what Holden was talking about — I'd defined those dimensions for him. And Marcus and I had made love many times.
"...so it was a lot more of a sharing kind of thing. I showed him some things I liked, and I got myself higher and higher, while I was picking up on what he liked too. I did the kiss-lick on him, and he started doing it to me too. And as soon as I came, he did too. Wynn, it was so neat!
"Anyway, I didn't sleep on the hideaway bed. They wanted me to sleep on the bed with them, so I did.
"Since I woke up I've been writing in my diary. I've got so much stuff I want to show Hamish as soon as he gets here!"
I grinned, leaned forward and took Holden's hands. "Listen, I have a few more things I still want you to try, but I'm pretty sure you'll be ready for the party. Still want to do that?"
"Oh, for sure!"
"Oh! Before I forget, pull down your shorts and briefs. I want to see how the salon did."