Category: Life and Shadow

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.

You checking out my cock, big boy?

Oh, you’re just making sure I’m not a woman.

I’m glad we have such brave gender defenders like you.

With all these freaks running around now,

Using whatever bathrooms they please,

You just don’t know who you’re pissing with anymore.

Thank God you ain’t one of them perverts.

Her latest mission is to rid the world of transgenders for Jesus.

She’s never met one, but knows they’re everywhere, lurking in dark bathrooms, waiting to groom her children.

It’s ironic: with all the fillers in her face and her militant demeanor, she seems so harsh and manly. And with a half-inch of makeup caked on her skin and that brittle, bottle-blonde hair, she could easily be mistaken for a drag queen.

She spends endless hours scrolling social media, posting impassioned rants about gays, sex trafficking, saving babies, or whatever the newest topic of outrage may be.

As she racks up the likes, she congratulates herself for being such an effective agent for change without ever having to leave her chair. How did God ever manage to get anything done before she came along?

In the waking moments of the morning, she checks her phone for the latest news to feed her fury. The world is changing quickly, and she needs to be at the center of it, spouting her opinion on everything—no matter how little she understands.

All through the day, she listens to her favorite dozen or so podcasts, hosted by blathering, imbecilic grifters whose livelihoods depend on spewing toxic shit from their mouth anuses. She laps up their manufactured rage and conspiracy theories as gospel.

At night, she demands that the television run while she sleeps: her mind needs to be constantly plugged into a steady stream of noise, lest she ever have a quiet, reflective thought of her own. Isolation breeds rebellion, and she must remain in lockstep with the other warriors, firmly entrenched in the same beliefs.

Her rage is righteousness, and she often thinks about that day in the far distant future when she enters heaven and approaches Jesus’ throne. He’ll congratulate her for having all the correct beliefs and hating all the same people he hates, and she’ll primly smile while inwardly sneering at all the sinners burning in hell. Oh, how she can’t wait for them to suffer.

Needless to say, her bed has been dead for years. Her husband’s flabby, middle-aged spread grosses her out, and he’s grown bored of her sagging body despite that pricey boob lift he paid for a while back. He also detests the cunt.

She disdains him for being weak and passive—he isn’t the strong, aggressive man with a giant penis that she so often fantasizes about. Sometimes, while she’s violently fingering her clit in the tub, she thinks about him slapping her around and subduing her like a real man.

In the evenings, when she’s busy achieving meaningful change on social media, her husband is quietly swiping on his phone, furtively cruising for fresh hole. Meanwhile, her son is gooning to hentai in the next room.

She secretly despises her daughter for having the audacity to be young and cute, and seethes with jealousy that men now look at that prissy little bitch instead of her.

Other women are her competition: none of that “sisterhood” and “supporting the girls” crap for her. She’s spent her life seeking men’s validation, and she’ll be damned if she lets another woman receive attention from one.

To her, life is all about survival of the fittest—she’s pretty sure it even says that in the Bible. At least, that’s what a chatbot told her once when she was looking for an inspirational verse to post on her socials.

Because of her enduring faithfulness, God has richly blessed her with a well-paying job, and now she’s the breadwinner. Money talks, so she gets everything she wants. “If Mama ain’t happy…” is her motto, and she reminds everyone in the family of it.

She regularly berates her husband and children, and they cower in their rooms when she comes home each day, stomping in the door and banging noisily in the kitchen, alternately staring at her phone and yelling while she microwaves dinner. They’ve all come to hate the sound of her voice, butchered by years of baby talk and vocal fry.

Her favorite time of the week is Sunday morning, when she and her family will be all smiles in the second row at church.

She’s living her best life, and loves that everyone is so jelly of her.

If only women knew what their husbands and boyfriends do with each other in public restrooms.

Any man from Atlanta knows the code well: the toilet flushing when you walk in the door, tapping feet, heavy breathing.

One time in the Midtown Publix, I was standing at the urinal while two guys were grunting and moaning in the stall next to me, apparently too distracted to detect my presence—or maybe they knew and liked it.

Another time in the Buckhead Target, I watched two guys stumble out of a stall when I walked in the door—both had embarrassed looks on their faces and were pulling up their pants. You can’t get less subtle than that.

Then there was the time I stopped at a rest area in the suburbs at 5 a.m. — I drank a lot of coffee before I left the city. The first thing I saw when I pushed open the door was a bare ass ducking into a stall. “Nooope”, I said out loud and beelined to the adjacent restroom.

I make no judgment on the acts—only the lies and secrecy. And for the men who hook up with other guys but elect to strip the rights of those who aren’t downlow hypocrites like themselves, I have nothing but disdain.

Suck and fuck all you want, bros, and when you have to deal with the inevitable disease and the fallout of your women discovering your deeds, well, you have my sympathies—but only to a point.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to piss.