Chapter 1

John's House

The big difference between me, and the rest of the douche bags who were flipping real estate in the 80s and 90s, was that I knew when to get out. I flipped myself into a million dollar estate in a rich suburb, paid it off without worrying about the ethics, and diversified a few million in investments between gold, oil, rice and porn. You know - the stuff that the world will never stop using.

When the bottom fell out of the market and Wall Street crashed, I was playing golf at a resort in Aruba.

I have a nice life - mostly because I'm not too greedy. I have a few hobbies - golf, photography - and I like to go places with pretty boys lying on beaches and beyond that, I don't need much.

I have a staff of three to run my estate. Juan is my driver/assistant/gopher. Ivan cooks, cleans and sews. Yann does the grounds and routine maintenance. The house could sleep 25 comfortably and 50 if people don't mind sharing, but there's only us four living here. The few times I had guests or threw a party, the boys contracted whatever we need.

Yes, 'the boys'. I made it clear when I hired them that I no intention of ever doing a minute's worth of useful work again in life - and since I have too much money for one man to spend, I can get away with that - but they were getting the jobs because they were young, pretty and willing to do almost anything to live in this house. As such, the deal is this: so long as the place is clean, the grounds are kept up, I get where I need to be on time and my meals are hot and ready when I am, they can pretty much do what they want.

So we're as much a family as Boss and staff. They play and fight like brothers and I watch from afar like a loving father. They have the run of the place, for the most part. I sleep on the third floor, east side suite; they have rooms on the second floor plus a fully furnished den and computer lab dedicated for their use. The kitchen, dining room, and the other basic stuff was located on the in a sort of circular cul-de-sac between the 'east wing' and the 'formal' areas. The west side of the house mirrored the east, but we used it twice a year, maybe.

Juan's the only one who actually works hard most days. He's the one who spends most of his time doing whatever I want to do. Of course, since I play a lot of golf, it means he gets to hang out at the clubhouse and drink martinis, so 'work' is a relative term.

I had a good life. I had Maslov covered. Then something happened.

Yann got a boyfriend. A serious one.

Now, it's not that I begrudged the boy his happiness and I had no problem watching four pretty young boys hanging around my pool in speedos. But it kind of reminded me that I'd never found anyone.

I'm not what you'd call handsome. My best asset is my fat wallet. I'm not ugly; in fact I'm hardly noticeable. Just another forty-something, bald, black guy in a sea of them. I try to stay fit enough to carry my own clubs and I've managed to avoid hypertension, diabetes and the rest of the middle-age medical dramas. So I'm not bad, overall.

But boys like the ones I'd hired never looked twice at me unless I was picking up the check. And I just cannot justify paying for tail. My left hand and my porn collection were free. And a deal I did a decade or so back, keep a couple boxes of free porn appearing in my mail about once a week. Still, watching Yann and Sean frolic reminded me how long it'd been since I'd had an actual lover.

So I started dating. Well, I signed up for a dating service. But they all seemed to be gold-diggers. The hook-up sites were sleazy. And, the longer I thought about it, the more I didn't like either option. I didn't want one partner for the rest of my life, but I also didn't want disposable lovers. I wanted two or three guys I could depend on. A bit of variety, but not a nameless horde. A stable of studs. A harem.

Once the idea struck me, I could not shake it.

I had the space. Even without opening the west wing of the house, the second floor east wasn't completely in use. Without re-modeling, there were eight unused guest rooms available. If I put two studs in each, I had space for sixteen - way more than I was likely to find!

I could afford it. I had the space. My only other consideration was what the boys would think. They'd be taking care of the whole 'stud farm'.

It was mid May and the temperature was already over 85 most days. After they'd finished their morning chores, all three of the boys could be found in the pool. I put on my suit and a robe and joined them.

Juan was on a lawn chair wearing an almost legal piece of string as he maintained his already perfect Puerto Rican bronze tan. Ivan was swimming laps, his dark hair always a striking contrast to his pale blue eyes and fair skin. Yann sat in the shade, reading the morning news. He was also fair-skinned, but with reddish-brown hair and a faint accent that at times seemed to shift from French to Welsh. They were all in model-quality physical form, all between 5-foot-5 and 5-foot-7 - making them a few inches shorter than me - and all 23 years old.

I whistled loudly to get their attention and they stopped what they were doing. "I got something I want to run past you boys. Could be some big changes around here."

"Oh my God, you're getting married!" Ivan laughed as he got out of the pool.

We all laughed. That was the running joke.

I shrugged, though, "Well, technically no, but..."

Their laughter sort of faded out. "What does that mean?" Juan asked.

I laughed at their reactions. "It's a historic reference. I have not met someone." They all seemed to relax. "What? You guys don't want me to settle down, have a wife and kids and be happy?"

"Well," Yann started slowly, glancing at the other two. "It's not that, really."

"Of course we want you to be happy, Papi!" Juan interjected. "If you've found a woman, we'll all be very happy. Won't we?" The others quickly agreed.

I looked at them. They began to fidget. The longer I looked, the guiltier they acted. It was very amusing.

"We really would be happy for you." Ivan offered. "We would just miss it being just us around here."

"Just us 'Johns'." Yann chuckled, but it was self-conscious.

Another household joke. My name was John and by pure coincidence, all of my boys were named some variant of 'John' too.

I kept waiting. They didn't try to keep secrets often, but I hated not knowing what was going on in my own house. They looked at each other.

"It's not a big deal." Juan sighed. "We just love our little playboy mansion the way it is. Just us. We don't want to share you with anyone else."