Room For Rent
Chapter One: 1426 East Maple
By: Wade Wright
"1426 East Maple, ----there it is," Jim said to himself.
It was a bright and warm Sunday morning about 10:00 and Jim was using the newspaper ads as a guide, to possibly find himself a good "in town room" that he could rent to use during the workweek, since he was now going to be working a construction job just a little too far away from home to be able to drive back and forth each day.
Jim worked construction framing and simply had to go to whichever town had the work available. He was a married man, and a daddy of two children, a boy aged 3 and a girl aged 5. He, aged 26 and his wife Barbara, two years younger, certainly did not like the idea of Jim needing to be away from home during the entire week, but they had decided that if they wanted the income, and on a steady basis, that simply was the way life was going to have to be until Jim could get the financing together to start his own small construction company.
The project that Jim was hired onto was a major apartment complex and was going to be a good steady job for at least a year, and that was something that did not happen very often, so the necessity of staying in the city during the week and then going home during the weekend was just going to be a necessity.
Jim had gotten confirmation on Friday afternoon that he was definitely hired and he had called Barbara that afternoon and told her the good news and that he was going to stay in town that weekend to see if he could find a room to rent someplace and get that little problem off of his mind.
The entire Saturday had come and gone, and he had chased down about 20 different "room for rent" locations, and nothing, absolutely nothing was turning out to be even slightly acceptable. Dirt, rats, highway traffic, railroad noise, police sirens, you name it, each one had its terrible distractions to being a good place to be, let alone sleep. He easily understood why they were each available, and probably had been for quite some time.
After a very disappointing day Saturday, Jim decided that he just needed to look in some of the less seedy parts of town, and just see if he could locate something that was in his price range, although it would probably have to be a little smaller than what he had been hoping to find.
"1426 East Maple, there it is," Jim again uttered as he pulled his truck up along the curb on the other side of the street.
"Damn, looks pretty nice, especially compared to yesterday's crap!" Jim told himself as he questioned the feasibility of this being a location that would be very happy renting to a construction worker, rather than to maybe some computer guy or maybe a CPA type of guy. He rechecked the newspaper ad:
Room for rent for a gentleman
Large bedroom/shared bath with male owner
Kitchen privileges/covered parking/local phone use
Available by the week or the month/discount for longer term
Rent rate to be discussed upon inspection
1426 East Maple
"Yea, that's it!" Once again Jim told himself. "Sure does look like something a lot more than my aim of $400 a month to me though. Wonder what the monthly is on this?"
Deciding that at least looking at it and then deciding if it was a go or not was the prudent thing to do since he had taken the time to find it. He had some serious doubts though. Sharp looking place, and in this neighborhood, and anything close to $400 a month sure did not seem to be a possibility, especially when compared to the trash he had looked at the day before. It was total crap, and it too was going for $400 and sometimes $500 a month, and even then some of them were without utilities included.
Jim figured that if it was going to be advertised in the newspaper, then the owner had better expect people to stop by to see what it was and to find out what the dollar figure was going to be since it was not listed in the ad.
After parking his pickup a little more properly, Jim swung his 6'2", 195 pound structure out of the truck and slowly approached the front door, admiring all of the detailed work that had been put into the landscaping of the yard.
With the newspaper in hand, he rang the front doorbell. He waited. He rang the doorbell again. He waited, some more! He turned and saw an SUV parked in the carport and wondered if nobody was home, even though the SUV was parked there, and their ad had hit the newspaper that morning. He rang the doorbell the third time.
From what sounded like from a distance in the house he heard a man's voice yell out, "I'm coming, I'll be right there!"
Jim patiently waited by the door, until he heard it being unlocked and then opened.
As the door swung open, Jim was greeted by a young man, probably about age 33, that had much the same body structure and appearance as Jim did. Only major difference was, the house owner only had a bath towel wrapped around himself, whereas Jim was fully clothed.
Opening the door and at the same time making sure the towel was securely placed, the house owner asked, "Yes, what can I do for you?"
Jim rather held up the paper and said, "I'm here about your ad for a room to rent."
Acting rather confused, the man inside the door, looked at the newspaper, then looked at Jim and asked, "The ad? Is the ad in today's newspaper?"
Jim rather then kind of confused like, then replied, "Well yea! Is this 1426 East Maple?"
The, now very confused homeowner then quickly replied, "Yea,--yes it is! I'm sorry I did not know they got my ad in today! I'm sorry. Hey, here, come on in. I'm sorry, I did not think it was going to be in until tomorrow."
Jim watched the "rather undressed" man reach forward and unlock the screen door, and pushed it open and again said, "I'm sorry, come on in! Really I did not know they got my ad in today's paper."
The homeowner held the screen door open with his right hand, and continued to maintain total control of the damp bath towel with his left hand. "Please come in! I'm sorry, I did not expect anybody today. Forgive me, I was taking a shower when I heard the doorbell. I assumed that it was some friend of mine or I would have yelled that I needed to get dressed. I'm sorry, I'm feeling all confused here. See, I know the people in the ad department of the newspaper, and they told me that they did not think they could get my ad in till tomorrow, so I did not know it was already in there. OH, I'm Todd!"
Reaching out to grasp the extened hand to contact for a hand shake, Jim replied, "Hi, I'm Jim. Sorry I kind of caught you at a bad time."
"Hey man! Not your fault at all!" Todd replied as he let the screen door close, and he then closed the main door.
As he re-tucked the top of his bath towel in to make sure it was secure, Todd then added, "Well Jim, I sure am kind of embarrassed about the way we have met, but since you might be interested in the room, and since I don't always wear a three piece suit in the house, I kind of guess the idea of you seeing me almost totally naked is a pretty good way of getting to meet each other, since I'm sure this will happen a number of times if you and I live together."
Jim jokingly laughed and without even letting on a hint that he truly was quite overtaken with the "almost totally naked body" that was standing in front of him, he simply said, "Hey no big deal. I've taken a lot of gang showers with the guys when in high school, so it's no big deal. You want me to wait here while you get dressed, or something?"
"No actually no, if it's OK with you. You've already seen almost the 'all of me', so why in the hell try to act all primp and proper now? You're a guy, I'm a guy and, hey, ---big deal."
Accepting that Todd was comfortable in just keeping the towel on, Jim felt slightly uncomfortable in that every time he looked at Todd, he felt like he was slightly admiring his physic and that was making Jim just a little uncomfortable. He did not expect to be interviewed by an almost naked man, and the sharp structure that Todd was displaying was just a little too close to the well defined structure that he personally had strived for during all of his hours, pushing tons of weight, in the weight room.
Jim led the way down the hall to the bedroom in question.
"Damn man, this is nice!" Jim expounded. Man, this is a nice sized room!"
Jim managed an, "Oh, OK. Your ad, it doesn't give a dollar figure, and now that I'm here in your neighborhood, and after seeing this room too, I'm kind of figuring that I might be looking way above my head, dollar wise."
Todd did not immediately give a dollar figure, but rather told Jim that there was no, set-in-concrete firm figure and he was wanting to know for about how long Jim might want the room and where he was working and quite a number of other items.
Jim gave Todd a very complete detailed commentary on his working situation, his family situation and his need for a room for just the work week.
As they stood there slightly discussing Jim's situation, Todd was becoming more and more convinced that if it meant paying HIM the money to stay there, he was about willing to do it, just to have that hunk of a man around.
Todd was noticing how damned hunky this young daddy guy was, even though he was fully dressed and not showing all of the bare skin that he himself was displaying. Looking through the cloth, so to say, Todd liked what he could imagine was being hidden underneath!
After a rather extensive conversation, some material that was kind of necessary, and some material that was simply letting Todd get to know Jim better, and Jim's attitudes on life a little better, Todd said, "Jim, I've never rented this room to anybody before, since I'm OK financially and really don't need the income, but I decided that having someone else around some of the time would be good, and that's the only reason I decided to do it. Friends have told me that I should charge at least $500 or $600 a month since the whole house is available, but I'm going to be damn honest with you and tell you that money is not my main aim. You and your family are trying to make it financially, and you are only going to be here during the work week, and just having you around part of the time is part of the pay off to me. Jim, I'm going to be real honest with you and let you know everything so you can make the decision. I think I've pretty well read you as being a pretty open minded kind of guy. You seem to have some pretty good attitudes about stuff in general, and I think that if I told you that I am a gay guy, and there will probably be some of my friends around some of the time, and sometimes for overnight, if you can accept that, I'm willing to rent you this room for $200 a month. Jim, if I can have some guy like you using this room, and you said you will need it for at least a good year, then to me, part of my pay back is just having some good guy around that I can talk to part of the time, or maybe fix supper for if our schedules hit just right. What do you say? Sound like a deal to you?"
"Jim, I'm not gay. I'm married and a daddy of two kids. I sure don't have anything against gays, but are you thinking that if you rent me this room, that I'm expected to join in on your gay stuff?"
"No Jim, NO! No, I sure did not mean to imply that at all. I just wanted you to know the real stuff before you decide if this will work for you. If I have some guy in for the night, and he is still here the next morning, I need to know that you understand and that doesn't freak you out any. If you want the room, it is strictly total business between you and me, and my buddies too. They will know you are a straight guy! And what you pay for rent is none of their damn business. Seriously Jim, I'm hoping you will take it. I do want you to understand though that we will be sharing a bathroom, and I do not intend nor do I ever put pants on just to go from my bedroom to the bathroom. If you know that seeing me running around the house without any pants on is a problem, then maybe this will not work. As far as I'm concerned, if you run around naked, that sure is not going to bother me, but that is up to you. You're a grown man, and I'm a grown man and I really don't think seeing each other naked once in awhile should be a problem, but like I said, it's up to you."
"I will admit," Todd continued, "Seeing each of us naked will be a hell of a bigger problem for me than for you, I know. You are no slob and I will just have to make a very firm promise to you that I will respect you and not make you uncomfortable with any funny actions or comments. I hope you can trust me that I will not try anything with you. I may tell you once in awhile that I'd like to or tell you that I wish I could, but that will just be talk. I think you probably have been around other gays before and you probably already know how we can be pretty direct in saying what we'd like to do and with whom."
"When I thought about maybe renting this room out just to have somebody around once in awhile, I never had any imagination that somebody like you might be the person. I'm willing to make it real cheap for you, so that you can save toward that business you want, and just having some guy like you around would be a big pay off to me. I think you and I could get along real well, and I'd sure rather give you a deal and have you around here than to charge some old fart a lot and then wish he'd move out! What do you say? You're safe man. I won't let any of my guys get you! Fact is we just might hang a big sign on your door that states something like, Stay out--I'm straight!"
"Todd, I never imagined that I might get confronted with something like this. All I was doing was trying to find some good room someplace, to rent for the weekdays. I never imagined that I'd run into a situation when maybe I was going to have to decide if what goes on there was acceptable to me or not. Hell man, I would have thought all those dumps I saw yesterday would have been more of the place for something like this to happen, not someplace around here. God Todd! I've got to admit, being able to have a room for only $200 a month could make a guy put up with a lot of stuff that might be a problem for him. But shit man, I'm a married man with a wife and two kids back home. What if somebody found out where I was living during the week?"
"Jim, I was really hoping that being straight forward and honest with you could and would pay off for me, but if knowing that you would be staying with a gay guy, and sometimes, him having some of his men in, overnight, is a problem, then I can understand your position."
"Oh Todd, what a damn decision!" Jim said. "OK, ---- now I've got one question for you! Are you top, or bottom?"