Category: Life and Shadow

He wasn’t a nice man by any means: coarse, gruff, surly, and prone to cussing out clients and co-workers.

He wasn’t that much older than me, but looked ancient — a good fifty pounds overweight, bulging beer belly, balding head, and a thick, graying beard.

He had a wife and several children and clearly resented the role of family man, bitching about them constantly. The way he talked about women’s titties all the time, I knew he wasn’t getting any either.

On Mondays, he’d boast about being a deacon at his church, struggling to recall details of the preacher’s message. He liked the bits about punishing sinners the best, although he admitted to occasionally falling asleep during the sermon. As he blathered on about being a holy man, I’d secretly roll my eyes.

He was skilled at his profession, I suppose, but dumb as a rock about using a computer, which he masked with typical bravado. I sat near his desk and observed the same scenario many times:

He’d peck slowly at the keyboard, struggle to understand some basic program, mutter and sigh a lot before blurting out, “Something’s wrong with this computer. Must be a virus.”

That’s how he got into the habit of getting me to “fix” his computer. “It’s slowed down. Need you to clean it up,” he’d tell me, before barreling out the door. All I ever did was clear his browser history, making note of the porn sites he’d been visiting.

I guess he liked having someone as a wingman, so he started bringing me along to different work meetings, always hauling me around in his giant pickup truck. He’d rant and rave about the state of the world and talk about himself a lot, rarely asking anything about me. At some point, he started sliding his arm behind me while he was driving.

He usually took off early on Fridays, but one Friday afternoon, we had gone to a late meeting, and he still had to drop me off at the office — he didn’t even know where I lived. When we got into the truck, he suddenly said, “Going out with the wife tonight. Need to change my pants.”

Before I could respond, he was crawling into the back seat, his ass passing in front of my face. I knew in a flash what was happening. It wasn’t an invitation — I knew the kind of porn he liked, after all — but more a cry for someone to validate that he still had it.

Ok, I’ll play along, I thought. Somehow, I’d developed an affinity for the guy.

I watched in the rearview mirror as he took off his dirty jeans, awkwardly shifting and positioning his crotch so I could see it better. His thighs were wide and surprisingly pale and smooth.

The bulge in his tighty-whities was unremarkable, but the sight of it was no less jarring.

His breathing was labored as he pulled on a pair of tight black jeans. Then he opened the door, slammed it shut, and walked to the front.

As he sat down at the steering wheel, I shifted my eyes toward him without turning and said, coolly: “Looking good.”

“Thanks, man!” he beamed with a wide grin, zipping up his pants. I think I made his year.

We watched the orgy of middle-aged men, all piled up and guzzling each other’s beer-can cocks.

Their asses were wide and sagging; their overweight bodies were covered in hair.

“Don’t tell our wives,” they joked between gulps.

No one could ever find these ugly guys attractive —

It was the “forbidden” aspect that made the spectacle so titillating.

They were too distracted to notice us, for which I was quite relieved.

“This isn’t our thing,” I said, and you nodded in agreement.

We took each other’s hand and walked down a secluded path together.

The sounds of the other men dissipated as we sat on a bench and embraced each other in silence.

I kissed your forehead lightly, and you pressed your lips against my cheek.

We looked at each other, smiled softly, and then you winked.

“Let’s go home, bruv,” you said, and we wandered off shoulder to shoulder.

Those guys would be so jealous of what we did that night.

I recently received the following chat request:

Hello 21 male here
Huge porn lover lol

Doesn’t that describe every 21-year-old male? It’s not a unique trait. Not much of a selling point, either.

I looked through my posting history and couldn’t find a thing that would suggest I was interested in talking to a “huge porn lover,” and based on first-hand experience, their conversation skills are limited at best.

The guy’s less than half my age, too, so there’s that.

The message continued:

What are your favourite kinks/porn videos/pornstars?
We can trade favourites if your down btw

So he’s either British or from a country that uses British spelling. He also presumes we’re of the same sexual preference — I’m not so sure on that one.

His misuse of the word “your” indicates he’s not a bot, at least, although it’s clear I’m not dealing with an intellectual heavyweight.

The references to kinks and porn stars suggest a man-child in thrall to his fantasies and hero worship, like there aren’t enough of those in the world right now.

In summary: Can’t say there’s anything about this guy that interests me.

Sorry, baby bro, you’re blocked.

He married up, that’s for sure.

She was beautiful and ambitious, a real go-getter. That was what attracted him to her in the first place.

The problem was that her star had yet to rise, while his was beginning to fade, although he didn’t know it yet.

After years of anonymity, plucking and singing every night over the din of the drunk and disinterested, he finally scored a recording contract — and the girl.

She stood by him even as his once-handsome appearance turned to shit: the long nights of drinking and cocaine, a series of failed moneymaking schemes, and the relentless pressure of performing and touring added weight to his frame and lines to his face.

An EP was cut, but it didn’t chart, and because he no longer had a look the record executives wanted, the whole thing fell apart.

It was a relief when they married and escaped to a small city in the middle of nowhere. He saw it as his chance to start over: a new lease on life.

He took his savings and bought them a tidy brick house on a comfortable cul-de-sac in a respectable neighborhood. He landed a decent job as a salesman. He wasn’t particularly good at it, but the bills got paid.

Ten years later, they had several kids, and his wife had become a successful entrepreneur. Now she was the breadwinner, with an income that eclipsed his by multiples.

Her business took her all over the country, while he settled into a dull and predictable routine. He still had a job, but his office was at home, and there were entire days and weeks when they never saw each other.

Cut off from meaningful contact, the outer world had seemingly forgotten him — certainly his wife had. He sat at his laptop for hours, staring absently at the screen. He knew his wife was probably sleeping with better-looking, successful men. He didn’t mind all that much.

Now in middle age, he’d been hit with feelings he thought were buried years ago. He was attracted to women, of course, but that old longing for another man’s touch had started to resurface.

With no one around during the day, he was free to find other married men online. He was nervous at first, but quickly gained confidence in his skin.

He began posing for pics in the bathroom mirror: first his hard cock, then his saggy ass, then his whole body. After a while, he showed his gray-bearded face too.

He never thought much of his dick, but was surprised to receive quite a few compliments on it from other guys. And although he was a good hundred pounds overweight, he found many men were genuinely attracted to his beefy frame.

He initially took off his wedding ring for pictures, but then discovered that he got more likes with it on.

He loved the attention and the feeling of being desired; it made him feel valuable again. He got into the habit of jerking off with other guys on camera, but was always a little heartbroken when they got off and ghosted. He was an artist at heart, after all, and at his core, a sensitive soul.

What he really wanted was to be touched and held, for someone to have a good, long talk with — a person with whom he could share his innermost secrets and deep thoughts. His wife wasn’t that person anymore, and there was no one else around to fill the hole.

Sometimes on weekends he’d do manly outdoor things with his buddies — none of whom he knew too well. He wondered what it would feel like to have their cocks in his mouth, and if they were thinking the same thing. Some of them were, but they didn’t have the balls to admit it.

He tried to initiate a few anonymous hookups but couldn’t follow through. It wasn’t the cheating part that bothered him so much, but the fact that he was raising his sons to be manly and heterosexual, and he felt that he needed to project a strong, masculine image to them — even if it was a lie.

As life passed him by, he withered away inside. He often looked back and wondered what he could have done differently, but he didn’t know how to move forward either.

The venue was about as off-Broadway as it gets — a tiny little theater with folding chairs set up a few feet from the stage.

The infamous sex scene finally came, with the two leads spooning together in a cramped iron bed post-coitus.

A few women in the audience provided the performative gasps, followed by a round of suppressed nervous laughs.

The actor who had no problem with nudity was completely naked, his body awkwardly positioned at such an angle that we got a full view of his taint and baby dick — shaved, of course, with that awful plucked-chicken look that straight men think makes them look bigger.

You know he was proud of himself for having made such a brave artistic choice.

The other actor had tight white briefs on, carefully pulled down so that we saw a portion of his neatly trimmed bush and the base of his shaft, which wasn’t remarkable either, but still bigger than the other guy.

Both actors were obviously heterosexual: their body language was as stiff as the dialogue. Even the way they shared the oversized prop cigarette was unconvincing.

The play was about the forbidden love between two World War I servicemen, described in the program as an “unflinchingly raw portrayal that examines accepted truths and challenges assumptions.” That was my first clue that it was pretentious and dull.

As the actors droned on together, my mind drifted — what if one of them is trying to suppress a fart right now?

If either of the guys let one rip on stage, it’d be worth the price of the ticket.

She was a selfish, miserable cunt, despised by everyone who knew her. She was an influencer.

She overdosed — excuse me, passed unexpectedly — on a combination of booze and antidepressants, only days after a fresh round of fillers.

For her final selfie, she was posed in a bikini, pouting with inflated duck lips, her cheeks hollowed out from black-market Ozempic, showing off her latest pair of tits.

With her chemically peeled skin and a half-inch of makeup, she looked like a prepubescent alien — some dysmorphic spawn from a dystopian nightmare.

When they livestreamed the funeral, one of her followers typed: “OMG, she’s such a beautiful corpse”, before scrolling absently to another video.

And that’s the only thing that matters in life, right?

The applause still lingered as I ran off stage and bolted down a rear corridor alone.

My escape was momentarily halted by the back door, which had the most baffling handle I’d ever seen.

Suddenly, an old acquaintance appeared behind me. “Oh, good,” I said. “Help a brother here. You gays always know the way out.”

“Try this,” he said as he leaned over my shoulder and placed his hand on mine. We pushed the handle together at just the right spot, then staggered out onto the patio.

“You were great today,” he said, settling down on a retaining wall while I paced absently.

“Thanks, man.”

“You look good and smell nice, too,” he said with a sly grin.

“Heh, thanks,” I said with a light chuckle. “Not interested, though.”

“Don’t knock me for trying,” he gently protested.

“Nah, I respect the game,” I shot back.

He lit up a cigarette and started smoking, and I sidled up beside him.

“Mind if I share?” I asked. I don’t even smoke.

He handed me the cigarette without a word while blowing into the air.

It felt nice to just relax together.