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.