What did it mean for Aaron to graduate from college? It meant hardly much if it meant that he was going to immediately land that dream job.
Aaron lacked that vaunted experience to get hired and he lacked the job to gain the experience.
He was back in his hometown for only three weeks and he already wished that he was on the legendary `five-year plan' to give himself some extra time in the classroom. Or maybe six years might be best for him.
The lobby of the TempFinders office was crowded with aspiring file clerks and receptionists who were willing to have work that was about as stable as an actors in television commercials.
Aaron was twenty-two and was groveling for the satisfaction of a weekly paycheck and an assignment that lasted longer than a month.
Paula the branch manager had Aaron take a battery of tests. He typed. He added. He calculated. He computed.
After an hour of completing forms, submitting references and watching the training video, Aaron was ready for whatever job was to be handed to him.
"I've got good news," Paula gushed like someone who truly loved her dead-end job.
"You, my friend, are going to be working a long-term assignment at Fremont Brothers. This department store is going out of business but needs help cataloging its final inventory. You should be there for four weeks."
Aaron was happy to have landed something to keep him occupied for the time being. He received directions to the downtown store and information about his working hours, the dress code and where to eat lunch.
"This is fucking great," Aaron told his best friend on his cell phone as he drove away from TempFinders.
"You need to celebrate. I know it's not like you got a job at an advertising agency but this calls for something!" said Natalie.
"I'm on my way to your house," he announced.
Natalie had an interesting living arrangement. She briefly dated Aaron and dumped him for the guy she was living with. There were no Jerry Springer problems, though; Aaron and the new guy became fast friends.
Aaron entered the front door of the apartment and loosened his scarlet power tie. Ben was resting on the floor with a white powery residue on his upper lip.
"Sorry. You just missed us doing a cool line," Natalie said sheepishly.
Ben got up and fixed himself up with a quick brush of his sleeve against his face.
Aaron didn't mind too much his missed chance at celebration. He never did coke and didn't plan on starting.
He sat on the couch next to Natalie and asked her what she had planned for the evening.
"Well, I know that you don't snort but I know that you would love to try some X."
Aaron adjusted his glasses and looked puzzled.
"Doesn't that totally fuck with your nervous system? I can't be a part of that scene," Aaron protested.
"We're not trying to turn you into a raver or anything. We just want to have a little extra fun!"
"What are we gonna do tonight, then?" Aaron asked skeptically.
"Well, if you're that curious," Ben interjected, "We are going to have a giant love fest. Come on. You can't knock being in a freaky cloud of love with your friends and a hundred other people. Can you?"
"You know that I will try anything once," Aaron relented to his friends.
"I know that you would," Natalie teased.
Aaron immediately flashed back to the time that the three had wild sex in a Boston hotel room on St. Patrick's Day. It was fantastic as the trashed trio tried every sexual combination possible. If Natalie had a dick, she might have even screwed both guys.
"I hope that you didn't have anything to eat," Natalie wondered out loud to Aaron.
"Not because I didn't want to eat. I spent eternity at TempFinders. I missed lunch and breakfast!"
"Perfect," she purred sweetly into Aaron's ear.
"Are your pangs getting to you," asked Ben.
"Not really, I guess," replied Ben.
"Great, take one of these."
Ben reached into his velvet Crown Royal bag and pulled out three beige-colored pills. They each had a strange logo on them. They were not the marking of a pharmaceutical company but pictures of peace symbols.
Ben placed one pill in Aaron's grudgingly outstretched hand. Natalie foisted a half-empty bottle of Evian toward him.
"Down it goes, honey," she said breezily.
Natalie and Ben followed suit with their respective dose.
"Maybe I'm impatient but I'm not feeling anything, kids," Aaron proudly told the pair.
"You're going to love the whole damn world," Ben exclaimed, "You need to change into something more of a Friday night kind of mood."
Natalie led Aaron into the bedroom and chose something that Ben didn't really cherish. In this case, it was a neon orange t-shirt and a shop-worn pair of black jeans.
"I know that you look like Halloween but this is in case you puke yourself," she explained to Aaron, "I just hope that you don't puke on the dance floor."
"Where are we going?" Aaron asked.
"We can't sit here and play Clue while we trip," she said, "We're going to Planet 9."
Planet 9 was the local gay bar; it had the most diverse mix of trance, ambient, house, jungle and any other music that could come coasting from a DJ's imagination.
"Who's driving?" Aaron asked.
Ben's eyes glazed over and he wandered Aaron's way. Ben placed a long lingering kiss on his friend's lips.
"I'm driving, you rookie," Ben said.
"Let's go," Natalie said. She removed her sweater to reveal only a white wife beater style undershirt. I need to take off my bra too because I am going to be sweating like a whore in church, she thought to herself.
The three traveled only ten minutes to their club of choice. Once inside, they went three different ways.
Ben headed for the bar. Natalie sought out her co-workers from the cell phone store. Aaron made a beeline to the dance floor.
The flashing lights and the strobes were intense but so was Aaron. His heart began to race with a fury that he never felt before. His flesh started seeping with perspiration. He was lusting for everyone around him.
He was not the first person to be rolling on the dance floor at Planet 9. A sympathetic dancer reached into her purse to hand him a lollipop from her purse. Aaron's mouth began a heated relationship with the sweet confection on a stick.
Aaron's tongue twirled and played with the Blow Pop. He was not aware that he was catching the attention of admiring eyes. A random hand from the crowd reached through the sea of people and pulled at him.
Aaron was turned on and aroused be the fingers that held his arm. He rubbed his cheek against the hand and followed blindly from the dance floor. It was a magical time in which Aaron would have been following anybody. He didn't care who it was -- someone to help him or someone to hurt him.
The flickering lights of the club gave way to the twinkling illumination of the night sky. He willfully trekked in the darkness of the unpaved parking lot to a wall that was out of view from the street.
Aaron stopped when his leader halted. Aaron felt the pressure on his arm go away and then felt himself in the warm embrace of a strange man. A tongue was racing its way around his face and he never even bother to ask a name.
It didn't take much for Aaron to get wood from this experience. His erectness was pressing through the fabric of his borrowed jeans. Those jeans quickly disappeared into the dimness below the two.
Aaron inhaled deeply and his back arched with the sensation that enveloped his bare cock. The wet feeling had to be this guy's mouth. Aaron had no idea who but he knew that it wasn't like any blowjob that he ever had before. A hundred mouths were causing his member to throb and tingle. This army of tongues was taking Aaron to the next level.
Some distant soundtrack was playing in Aaron's head. His hips bucked, thrusted and ground to this imaginary beat that was complied from Aaron's brief time on the dance floor. Looping and repeating were his bodily motions in a state of pleasure that was destined to be no simple quickie.
Aaron didn't care that he had no threshold to ejaculation. His mystery sucker didn't mind either. They were caught in a drug-induced stupor of excess -- well, at least Aaron was.
A rush of something twisted and contorted Aaron's body. He shimmied and shook to somehow savor the exit of his ejaculation into the stranger's willing mouth.
It was over. The mouth pulled away. The stranger grunted something that sounded like either "Thanks" or "Great" and disappeared.
Around three in the morning, the club was preparing to close and chuckling woke up Aaron. Ben and Natalie were standing above their friend lying on the ground with his pants around his ankles.
"You passed out while taking a piss!" Ben screamed.
"I'm sorry that your first trip was such a bummer," Natalie said. She tried to fight her own impulse to laugh.
"Let's get you home and we'll watch some movies," Ben said, "We'll have to make it up to you somehow. Nobody takes ecstasy and doesn't get laid."
Natalie nodded in agreement and helped Ben pull their friend's pants back up.