Simply Red

Max’s Perspective

It was before 7AM on Saturday and we were already up and at it! It was the morning of our first farmer’s market and it was almost embarrassing how excited I was. I had worked my ass off on this! I worked for weeks making enough candles to make my booth look full, pouring wax every night and weekend. We also had some early produce to sell, but at that point our booth was mostly candles. I was also stressed over the look of the booth, I wanted it to be perfect for our debut. I bought a blue canopy and a couple of banquet tables, Dylan helped me build some risers to display my candles, and Brody designed labels and signage for BroMax Farm with our web address and social on them that was the cherry on top. He even had magnetic signs made for Old Blue. I had to admit, it looked like we had our shit together. Gina, Brody, and Dylan were all there to help me set up and make everything just perfect.

 Mrs. J had the booth right next to mine. She had a blue canopy like mine (we ordered them together), a homemade sign painted on reclaimed wood, about a hundred bottles of honey, and some early produce like me. When I was all set up, we helped Mrs. J. and Jack (her husband) unpack and set-up. Her booth looked great too. Completely different, but still polished. Once we were set up, Brody went with Dylan back to his place to help him do something to his deck. Dylan had helped us with so much, we owed him big time, plus Brody agreed to help with everything except dealing with people… that was my department. Gina stayed with us and helped with both booths. I was impressed with the crowd; it was a steady flow of both locals and tourists and they all seemed pretty interested in our wares. It seemed like Mrs. J and I were constantly talking to people while Gina and Jack kept refilling merchandise from the boxes on our trucks which were backed up to the canopies. I met so many new people and recognized a couple of parents. Laurie and Jeb, Bubba and Sarah, Darius and Tommy, Daddy and BA all stopped by to support me… Mrs. J and BA hit it off instantly. I had lived there less than a year and had already made a lot of friends. They say the first two years in a new place are the roughest, yeah, I had some rough patches at first, but things were going great.

The market was only open 8am to noon and time flew by quickly, our first foray into selling our wares was a success and frankly, I loved every damn second of it. It was like a little social event (Brody would have hated every minute of it). People seemed genuinely interested in our products and our little farm. There were a lot of visits to our website and hits on our social that morning and we added several more followers. When the place closed down, the four of us dismantled the two booths and loaded up our pick-ups. We both sold out of produce completely, Mrs. J sold almost half of her honey And I sold about 30% of my candles… way more than either of us expected to sell. We both brought in enough cash to cover the cost of our booths which felt like a total win.

With the two pick-ups loaded, we drove to a little diner and had lunch. The four of us compared verbal notes while me and Mrs. J took written notes about how we could improve. We also looked up the other markets in the area on our phones, there were a few, one on Monday mornings, another on Wednesday mornings, and a third that was at the same time as the one we had already committed to. Once school was out in a couple of weeks, we could probably do the two weekday markets, although I would need to miss a week’s worth of markets because of Seth and Zach’s wedding. The organizers didn’t love it when you skipped weeks, but they’d cut you a little slack if you gave them enough notice. This was turning into a little business venture for us and as long as I could keep churning out produce and candles, we would be fine. I wanted to keep things fresh and give people a reason to come back and visit every week, mid-summer I’d have more produce, in the fall I’d have pickles and apples to add, in the meantime I’d add different candle scents to change things up.

After lunch I went back home and unloaded the pick-up, Brody was still at Dylan’s working. I was wiped out but spent the rest of the day out back tending to the bees and picking mint. It was finally ready to harvest and I was hoping to unveil mint candles at the next farmer’s market to give me something to talk to people about. I was on the ladder hanging mint to dry (I had to keep it high so Jimmy didn’t get it… lesson learned. That little bastard would eat anything) when Brody drove his new(er) Jeep into the barn where he kept it at night.

“So, how’d it go?” he asked still seated in the vehicle with the top down.

I looked down from the ladder at him as he opened the door “Great for a first day. I put the cash in the mini safe and will deposit it on Monday, we also had a few credit card sales.” We had credit card processing set up for our online sales, so we used it at the market too. All the money went right into our BroMax Farm account. “I sold about a third of what I brought with me; Mrs. J sold about half of her honey.”

 “Day-um, that’s pretty good. Y’all brough a lot with ya.” Brody said. He wasn’t wrong, I had no clue what to expect so I brought way more than I could ever sell, and frankly I was glad to have a lot left so that the pressure to produce for the next market was off.

 “Oh, and every freaking person I know here stopped by, including Daddy and BA” I added. Brody smiled at that; he found my strange bond with BA amusing.

 “Did ya’ move it all back to the cellar already or do ya’ need help?” I stored the candles, pickles, and produce in Grammaw’s old root cellar, I had that thing jam packed. Daddy loved that! Every time he visited, he’d go into the cellar to see what I had down there… he said it reminded him of when he was a kid and Grammaw would pride herself on filling up the cold, little room with the fruits of her labor.

 “It’s already been unloaded and restocked” I answered. I kept like-scented candles in the same boxes and had them stacked by scent. I had that cellar so organized, it made Brody laugh. I was really treating our little venture like a legit business.

 By this time, Brody was out of the Jeep and I was coming down the ladder. We were face to face as he threw his arms around my waist and he gave me a peck on the lips. “Ya’ know I love you, Maxwell. But you look like hell” he said with a grin. I just nodded; he was completely right. I had pushed myself so hard and was so stressed out over this stupid farmer’s market and I had no idea why… it was just a hobby. Right? Aren’t hobbies supposed to be relaxing? “Why don’t we go out to dinner at the bar tonight and celebrate. We can invite Dylan, Gina, Mrs. J and Jack” Brody suggested. Damn, he had come a long way! He used to avoid any human contact, but here he was initiating it.

 “You sure?” I asked. He was. So, I texted everyone and got instant acceptances from all of them. We had about an hour and a half before we needed to leave so I kept puttering around, and Brody went up to his studio to check our social media. He was impressed with the bump in traffic and new followers. He was constantly adding new paintings of the animals and had created bee characters since we got the hives set-up. Damn, he was creative and talented as hell.

 We finally went upstairs and took a shower together, I was too tired to attack him (the desire was there, but damn I was wiped out). We dried off, got dressed and headed out to the bar. We pulled up at the same time as Mrs. J and Jack, and the four of us went in together talking and laughing as we entered the dark, familiar establishment. I had met Jack a couple of times, but Brody met him for the first time earlier that morning at the market. He seemed to be instantly at ease with the man, which was unusual, it typically took him a while to warm up to people. Jack worked in marketing at a local hospital and was familiar with Brody’s firm, so the two talked shop for a bit while me and Mrs. J talked about the farmer’s market and our ideas for making our booths better. Gina texted that they were running late and we should order for them. That was easy, they always got the same damn thing. Dylan got a cheeseburger with onion rings (like Brody), and Gina got the fried chicken salad. She pretenced she was eating healthy as she downed a pound of fried chicken on top of some greens doused in a shitload of dressing. Our food arrived just as they entered.

 Dinner was a gas! Jack was as fun as Mrs. J. We were laughing out loud at some wiseass comment Dylan made when a cute woman in a very plain dress approached our table and touched Mrs. J. on the shoulder. “Hi Donna. Having a night out?” the woman asked Mrs. J. Donna? I don’t think I had ever heard her first name before, Gina shot me a look… it was obvious I wasn’t the only clueless one. I gave Gina a smirk just as Mrs. J introduced us to her neighbor Loraine.

 “Loraine and Ken Live a couple of farms down” Mrs. J said (I couldn’t bring myself to call her Donna). “I’ve told you about her, Max. She and her husband Ken run a farm Co-Op.” I remembered her telling me about them. They had about 50 acres right down the road from the J’s farm and had started a Co-Op a few years ago and were doing well with it, they had a good sized membership and a great reputation. As we were talking, Ken came up behind Loraine and she introduced him to the table. Ken was hot as hell! He was about 6’ tall and 220 pounds of wall to wall muscle. Not the kind of muscle you get from the gym, but natural, farm grown muscle. Damn, this guy was sex on a stick… and he looked so damn familiar. He had a big smile as he shook hands with everyone at the table, that was until he came to me. His smile disappeared as our eyes met and he quickly looked away and went to shake Dylan’s hand. WTF was that? And where the hell did I know this guy from? It was driving me nuts. They stayed at our table and talked for a few minutes before leaving the restaurant. Our group hung out for about another hour before finally heading home. I was so freaking wiped out from my first Farmer’s Market… all the work and the stress of the anticipation took its toll. We said goodnight to everyone and then got into the Jeep.

“That was fun” Brody said surprising me. He typically tolerated social situations at best, but he actually had fun this time.

“Yeah, I like the J’s.” I said.  “But that Ken guy, I know him from somewhere… and did you see how strange he got when Mrs. J… Donna (I said rolling my eyes as I used her real name for the first time) introduced us?” 

“Huh?” Brody said as he looked over at me in the passenger seat. “I didn’t see anything, I wasn’t really payin’ that much attention.”

 “I know him from somewhere and it’s driving me nuts” I said as I wracked my brain trying to place him.

 "Hey, we gotta finalize the plans for Seth and Zach’s bachelor party, it’s less than a month away” Brody said switching the subject. We were the best men and had been trying to come up with a plan, but in Zach’s small town our options were pretty limited, plus they told us they wanted something low key. We’d been talking with our friends going back and forth about what to do. Cam suggested a trip to an Indian Casino that wasn’t too far from the small town.

“Well, everyone seems up for the Casino Trip Thursday night” I said.

“Is everybody gonna be there by then?” Brody asked. 

“I talked to Brad and he said all the family will all be there by then. The Wisconsin guys are all driving so can be flexible. But most of the other Arizona guys don’t fly in until Friday. Unfortunately, Thursday’s really our only option if we’re gonna do something.” I responded. “Mrs. Hall has a huge rehearsal dinner planned for Friday and has pretty much every single minute planned out for the rest of the weekend” I responded. Kelly Hall had sent emailed us a schedule for the weekend and there was very little time for us to do much else. “I found a bus that can take us to and from for pretty cheap and all the guys from the duplex agreed to pitch in.”

“Well, Zach, Seth and the rest of the guys like to gamble, we can be loud, and it’s not like there’s a gay bar or anything within fifty miles from what I can tell… I say we book it.” Brody said in a tone that told me he just wanted to be done with planning it. I pulled out my phone and sent a text to all the guys telling them the plan, and I told them I would confirm after I booked the bus on Monday. Done! We had everything figured out before we pulled the Jeep into the barn.

 Brody went into the house and let Zoey out the back door while I herded Jimmy into his stall for the night. Witchy was already sitting on the stall wall waiting for him. After he was tucked in, I took out my phone, turned on the flashlight, and went out and check the bees with Zoey following me. I went into the house about twenty minutes later and right upstairs to change and take a shower. Brody joined me in the shower and when we were done, he dried me off and led me to the guest bedroom where he had set up his old massage table and was burning a couple of my sage candles. “What’s all this?” I asked pleasantly surprised. Brody worked his way through college as a certified massaged therapist and gave fucking AMAZING massages, but he had pretty much retired his table once he moved back to North Carolina.

 “You’ve been a freakin’ stress ball for the last two weeks gettin’ ready for your first market and I thought a massage might help you relax” he said as he pulled the towel from my waist and guided me to lay on the table. HELL, YES, I wanted a massage. Brody hit a couple of buttons on his phones and relaxing music started to play through the speaker he had put on the dresser. “Just relax, I got this” he said as I laid down on my stomach and he squirted oil into his hands and rubbed them together to warm it.

 He stood at the head of the table and laid his hands on my muscular, tense shoulders and rubbed deep. His touch was pure fucking magic. I could feel the stress melt away and he moved his hands over my body. I’d love to tell you all the details about every incredible stroke, but I can’t because I fell the fuck asleep. I woke to my ass being kneaded by the softest, strongest, most talented set of hands on earth. I let out an involuntary moan as I started to come to.

 “You’re awake” said Brody’s gentle voice as he continued to knead and caress my tense body, “I lost you for a coupla’ minutes.” After a couple of stress-filled weeks of pushing myself hard, I was finally relaxed and loving every minute of it. Brody moved from my buttocks to the back of my thigh, down one leg stopping at my sore foot and giving it his full attention. He ground his thumbs into my sole, attacking any kinks and cramps that dared to challenge him. My moans became louder, deeper, and more guttural as he went harder and deeper. He moved to my other foot then worked his way up the leg, caressing my thigh and finally back to my butt. Damn, I forgot what an amazing masseuse he truly was. With my backside properly relaxed, he grazed his fingers past my hanging ball sac and up through my ass crack as he slicked-up my entire body with the warm oil. His fingertips gently touched my exposed pucker teasing me and making me yearn for more. I shuddered and moaned, encouraging Brody to pass by a second time, then a third, and a fourth… each time his fingers lingered just a bit longer over my quivering hole. During his final pass he inserted the tip of his index finger as he leaned down and whispered in my ear “time to turn over, Maxwell.”

 I flipped over so I was laying on my back with my plumped, red manhood exposed to the warm air. The scent of sage filled my nostrils as I inhaled deeply at Brody’s insistence. He once again stood at the head of the table and leaned over my body as he expertly rubbed every inch of my chest with the oil. When he started the massage, he had his towel wrapped around his waist, he was now completely naked with his warm, slowly growing member pushing against the top of my head as he worked. He leaned over even further, stretching as he started to work my abs and I couldn’t resist licking the underside of his tantalizing shaft. This time it was Brody who let out a moan as he continued laying his healing hands on my muscular body. His cock moved back and forth on my face and my tongue licked its length as it did. 

Brody climbed up on the table making it creak as he put a knee on either side of my head and positioned his cock directly above my mouth. He had been teasing me with his hands for what seemed like hours, grazing my balls, or gently brushing the side of my now hard manhood, and finally… FINALLY he grabbed it and put it in his warm, welcoming mouth as his body hovered over mine. He slowly took me down inch by aching inch until my swollen head nestled in the back of his throat. He slowly pulled off me, replacing his warm mouth with his oily hand. The two worked together as one covering my cock completely and giving me maximum pleasure. He expertly stimulated every nerve ending as he sent me into a lust-filled frenzy. I could resist no longer. reached up, grabbed his hard cock, and took him in my mouth. He slowly sunk his hard fleshy slab deep down my throat, then pulled back out… lifting and dropping his hips going in and out of me as he continued to stimulate my pole with his mouth and hand. The music, candlelight, and sage in the air brought it all together and made it so sensual. We weren’t rushed, we weren’t in a hurry to get each other off, we were just savoring our time together.

 Brody took me out of his mouth and licked the underside of my engorged cock as he reached below me and grabbed my cheeks. I reached up and grabbed his in response and opened my eyes. His cock was down my throat and his balls hitting my nose, I could see the curve of his perfect little bubble butt as it moved up and down. Damn, that did it for me… that view!!! I inhaled his scent and it shot excitement through me like a hit of poppers. Our slow, savory oral worship heated up quickly and we were both pushing in and out of each other in a mutual, sixty-nine, face fuck. We were moaning sending sensual vibrations coursing through each other’s tools. No words were spoken but we both knew each other intimately and were fully aware of how close the other was to cumming. I moved my right hand from his ass cheek to his balls and pulled eliciting an approving grunt… I knew what my man liked. 

His hips moved up and down even faster and mine followed suit. Our lust drove us and things started moving much faster. After a minute or two we both exploded. I tasted his cum first and was doing my damnedest to guzzle every drop when my load left my balls and worked its way up my shaft. Brody swallowed every drop. We stayed on top of each other licking and sucking until we both started to soften in each other’s mouths. The man I loved rolled off me, stood by the side of the table and ran his fingertips lightly and sensually up and down my body relaxing me one last time, ending our massage.

We went to the bedroom where I kissed him goodnight and thanked him for the amazing massage before I fell asleep in his arms for one of the most restful sleeps in a long time. It was about 9:00AM on Sunday morning when Brody woke me up with a cup of coffee. He had been up for a while and had already taken down his massage table and cleaned up the guest room, taken care of the animals, and spent an hour in his studio painting. “Hey sleepy head.” He said quietly as I sat up and took the hot mug from his hands.

 “Shit, it’s past 9:00. Why didn’t you wake me?”

 “Because you needed some damn sleep Mr. Farmers Market” he said with a smile. “You were so damn tense” he said as I smiled back at him and thanked him for the massage again. I needed it. “So, what’s your plan for today? I already took care of the animals and checked on the bees.”

 “Well, I was gonna work in the garden, and maybe hit the gym in the afternoon” I said. I had been great about getting my workouts in, well… until this last week, so I needed to catch up. As soon as I said the word ‘gym’, it hit me. “HOLY FUCK!” I yelled wide awake now. “That’s where I know Ken from!!! He’s the gym guy!”

 Brody just looked at me with a confused expression, “What gym guy?”

 “THEE gym guy!” I said. “You know, the guy that hit on me in the steam room the first time I went to the gym!” Ken was definitely the guy. No wonder his expression changed and he acted so weird.

 “Ken? But he’s married to Loraine” Brody said with a grin on his lips and a furl in his brow.

 “Yeah, and married straight guys NEVER fool around with other men in the steam room at the gym” I said with a sarcastic laugh.

 “So, you turned THAT hot motherfucker down for me?” He said with a smug grin. “You do love me” he added with a snicker before he gave me a peck on the lips. All I could think was ‘yeah, I had no problem turning him down, but I kissed Eric… ugh what the fuck was I thinking?’ But I didn’t dare say it out loud. It had been five months and we never mentioned it again; I wanted to keep it that way. I was drunk (the only logical explanation). “Well, it’s a small town, you were bound to run into him sooner or later. I’m sure he was happy as hell to get outta there.” We both kind of laughed it all off as I shook my head in disbelief. Brody went back up to his studio to paint and I went out to the garden to work. I called Gina while I was out there and told her about Ken, She squealed her disbelief into the phone almost shattering my eardrum, then we just talked while I pulled weeds. After we hung up, I called Seth to make sure he was cool with our bachelor party plan… he thought it was a great plan (not that he’d tell me if it wasn’t. Seth was nothing if not appreciative). Then I let him bitch about his mother in-law turning their wedding into her dream wedding, he said Zach stopped listening to him bitch about her and it felt good to let it out. I just loved hearing my friend’s voice. Plus, hearing Seth pissed off and bitching about someone was rare and amusing as hell.

Just another boring weekend in the country… just the way I liked it.

 

To be continued…