Hormones That Can't Be Hidden - Chapter 3

“Master Dong, don’t just stand there like a wooden post! Come over here, keep your eyes peeled, and watch carefully. Learn something!”

A bath scrubber older than him, with the weathered face of a man who had seen it all, shouted through the side of his mouth while dangling a half-extinguished cigarette. He was deftly rinsing and wiping down a sleek massage table while casting a murky, knowing gaze toward the “greenhorn” newcomer.

Everyone called him Old Liu.

“Manager Xu personally told me to show you the ropes. Fine, I’ll put in the work. Today, I’ll be your first ‘guinea pig’!”

Old Liu crushed his cigarette butt into a wet bin in the corner, then sprawled himself carelessly across the table now covered with a clean towel and looked back at him.

“Actually, this line of work is simple once you strip it down. The customer gets naked, they lie down, you spread the towel flat, and douse them with warm water. Then,” he made a heavy, downward scraping motion, “you use your strength to scrub! Understand? Don’t overthink it. Just treat them like that work uniform of yours covered in cement dust. Don’t be polite!”

“If you scrub them until they’re glowing red, that’s your skill; if you scrub them until they’re groaning in comfort, that’s your talent! What if you hurt them? Heh,” Old Liu grinned, revealing teeth stained yellow by tobacco, “that’s just because their own skin is too thin and can’t take a beating! It’s not on you!”

Old Liu spoke casually, as if he were explaining how to fix a leaky faucet. But to Dong Junhao, it sounded like a complex alien language. He instinctively looked down at his hands. They were the size of palm fans, with thick knuckles protruding like knots on an old tree. His palms were covered in a layer of yellowish-brown calluses as hard as bone. The texture felt less like skin and more like coarse sandpaper.

These hands could swing a thirty-pound sledgehammer with terrifying speed and carry a hundred pounds of rebar without breaking a sweat. They could smash through a brick wall with ease. But they had never “served” a person, let alone performed a task on the naked flesh of another man.

He felt like an oversized, poorly calibrated iron part being forced into a delicate, oily machine with a completely foreign operating system. Every corner of his being was out of place; every movement threatened to jam the gears.

Under Old Liu’s guidance and a fair amount of “Ow, take it easy!” and “Hiss, ancestors! That’s meat!” Dong Junhao finally managed to complete his first practice run. He barely memorized the basic steps: rinse, spread, douse, scrub, and rinse again.

Old Liu sat up, wincing as he patted his bright-red back. He laughed. “You kid, your strength is truly ‘banked’ not a bit of it goes to waste! Fine, I guess you’ve graduated.”

The real test came sooner than expected.

While Old Liu wandered off for a smoke, a man in his forties broad-shouldered and sturdy approached, a white towel wrapped loosely around his waist. His gaze swept over the scrubbers before landing on the tall, imposing figure of Dong Junhao, who was busy scrubbing down a table. The man tilted his chin. “I’ll try the new tall guy.”

Junhao’s heart sank, and his scalp tightened. He hadn’t yet recovered from the earlier chaos, but the customer’s finger was already pointing his way. There was no retreat. He straightened up, wiped his wet hands on a towel, and walked forward.

Mimicking Old Liu, he rinsed the table with hot water until the surface was warm and then spread out a clean white towel. The customer lay down, revealing a wide back with well-defined muscles and healthy, bronze skin. Junhao picked up the nylon scrubbing mitt. The coarse mesh against his calloused palms made a faint, grating sound.

Holding his breath as if performing a delicate surgery, he scooped a ladle of warm water and tilted his wrist. Splash! The water doused the solid back muscles evenly. Crystal droplets rolled down the tight skin, leaving a wet sheen.

“C… customer, I’m a beginner. I don’t know my own strength. I’ll have to ask for your… your patience.”

Junhao’s voice was dry, squeezed out of his throat with a tremor he didn’t even notice.

“Go for it! Don’t hold back!” the customer replied in a muffled voice from his arms. “It’s no fun if the pressure is too light!”

Junhao gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. Channeling the power he used for manual labor, he pressed the mitt down firmly. At the same time, his wrist used the same precise force he employed when grinding concrete burrs at a construction site. Starting from the shoulder blade, he scraped downward along the spine, Skree!

The sharp sound of friction tore through the air.

“AUGH—!!!”

Caught off guard, the customer reacted as if he had been branded by a red-hot iron. He leaped upward off the smooth table, his neck straining, letting out a distorted, blood-curdling howl!

A shocking patch of deep red appeared on his bronze back. The ridges of the scrubbing mitt were clearly visible, with the edges turning white. It looked excruciatingly painful.

The noisy bath area suddenly went silent. Eyes from the hot springs, the showers, and the lounge chairs all snapped toward them. Dong Junhao was petrified; his mind went completely blank. His hand froze in mid-air, neither advancing nor retreating, as if it weren’t his own limb. His face turned a deep, bruised purple. Beads of sweat erupted from his forehead and temples, flowing down his rugged features.

His tongue felt tied in a knot. “I, I’m so sorry! Big brother! I, I have a heavy hand! I didn’t mean to! I.”

The customer’s face was contorted in pain. He spun his head around, fury igniting in his eyes as he prepared to scream. But when his gaze met Junhao’s face filled with pure panic yet still handsome and masculine and saw that massive frame stretched against the light-blue technician’s shirt.

The sparks of anger flickered strangely. Instead of exploding, they seemed to transform into a different kind of intensity. He hissed, drawing in cold air, his muscles twitching. He waved his free hand dismissively, his voice trembling from the pain. “Sss, cough it’s, it’s fine young man, that strength of yours, it’s damn fierce like a wild bear.”

He paused, murmuring the rest through gritted teeth as his eyes quickly traced the damp fabric clinging to Junhao’s bulging chest. “But, cough it actually feels pretty good.”

Junhao couldn’t believe it. He stood frozen, his hands and feet cold, thinking he had ruined the job and would have to pay damages.

“Really, I’m fine!” Seeing the young man’s pale, terrified face, the customer forced a twisted smile that mixed pain with an inexplicable emotion. “Keep going! Just, just like that. But a little lighter. Just a little!”

He actually repositioned himself, lying back down with more relaxation, though he continued to hiss and puff as if enduring or perhaps savoring the sensation.

For Dong Junhao, time crawled as if he were walking on the edge of a cliff. He reached out again, not daring to use even thirty percent of his strength. His movements were as cautious as a bomb squad technician’s.

However, his hands were simply too rough. Even when he lightened his touch, the sandpaper-like, heavy texture of his calluses transmitted clearly through the mitt to the customer’s skin. The customer stopped screaming, replaced by short, suppressed moans from deep in his throat. His body would occasionally tense like iron before going completely limp. It sounded bizarre not like pure agony, but as if he were finding a masochistic solace in the rough treatment.

When the back was finally done, it was time for the front. The customer flipped over, a move that made Junhao even more uncomfortable. Facing another man’s exposed, sweaty front was entirely different from the back. The visual impact was direct and powerful. The air was thick with the scent of adult male hormones and the heat left over from the “torture.”

Junhao’s eyes darted around, unable to focus. His face burned. Sweat soaked his hair and dripped from his chin. His blue uniform was now completely drenched, the thin fabric clinging to his skin, no longer hiding the bronze, powerful body beneath.

As he moved his arms, the wet sleeves tightened around his bulging biceps and triceps. Every muscle rippled with explosive, primitive power. Sweat rolled over his collarbone and into the deep groove between his pectoral muscles, vanishing into the damp fabric of his abs. It was a raw, unpolished masculinity a story of struggle against heavy weights, full of heart-pounding vitality.

The customer’s gaze had shifted from the aftermath of pain to a blatant, burning stare. His eyes were like magnets, following the trail of sweat down Junhao’s strong body. His breathing became heavy, his chest heaving, and his Adam’s apple bobbed incessantly. He didn’t seem to care about his own physical reactions; his entire attention was consumed by the vibrant, hormone-laden flesh in front of him.

Junhao, focused solely on finishing this awkward “front-side operation,” was oblivious to the customer’s increasingly suggestive looks. When it was finally over, the man sat up abruptly. His entire face, neck, and ears were as red as if he had been boiled.

He let out a long, deep, and shaky breath. His eyes were terrifyingly bright, like heat-refined obsidian. “Good! Dammit, that was intense!” He wiped the sweat from his face. “Young man, what’s your name? Oh, Dong… Dong Junhao, right? I’ll remember that! Next time I come, I’m looking for you. I’m going to go buy a membership card right now!”

The man hopped off the table, his steps slightly unsteady. He pulled a crisp hundred-yuan bill from his wallet and slapped it into Junhao’s trembling, wet hand. Before pulling away, he squeezed Junhao’s iron-like forearm muscle, his eyes darkening further.

“Keep it! Your service is worth this price!”

Junhao stared blankly at the red bill in his hand. He looked at the customer’s face a mix of pain and post-relaxation bliss and a complicated, near-savage expression he couldn’t understand. He was completely stunned. This was nothing like the “subservient” role he had imagined. There was an undercurrent here he didn’t understand, and it felt like the prologue to something crazy.