PART 1
Darren's eyes didn't leave the black-and-white print on the page. The night was calm. He didn't turn on the TV or listen to music from his computer or from a CD. The floor fan turned gently in the corner. The air conditioner put out a whisper of cool air.
If this were a different night, Darren might have been tempted to reach for the remote control and tune into the TV. He could be watching some crime drama or sitcom, flipping through the channels until he found something he liked. Sometimes his wife would join him, sitting next to him on their big sofa, with their feet up on the coffee table and their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders.
He might watch sports on TV. He played football in high school; didn't quite make it to the college level. But he never stopped following his favorite sport, watching all of the NFL games he could. While they didn't call him "Darren Touchdown" in high school, he sometimes told people that they did. It was a joke, but it was still true.
In the autumn, he might have been looking forward to the football season, which was just a few months away. In the spring, he probably would have been planning a road trip to one of the big-name sporting events around the country. Football? Baseball? It didn't matter. He had a decent job with a decent salary. He could afford it.
But tonight, Darren was stuck inside. He was also a husband. And a father. And a Catholic.
Tonight, his wife and daughters were out of town. They were on a trip to visit friends in another state. He had been looking forward to the time alone, the opportunity to get a lot of things done around the house. In fact, he was looking forward to it more than he should have been.
But there was no crime drama or sitcom on tonight. And there wasn't any big game either. It was just him and his book.
Darren had not always been a reader. In fact, he hadn't really been of the opinion that reading was a good use of his time. He was on the "too busy" list. As a kid, he was on the "too stupid" list. He was on the "too distracted" list. He was on the "can't hold a candle to Timmy" list. His parents had told him the same thing: he'd never amount to anything.
That's why, when he was about fourteen or fifteen, he started football. It was the only thing he was good at. He may not have been the smartest kid in school, but on the field he could outrun and out-stand the competition. He was the team's kicker. He was the team's punter. He was the team's field general. And he was the team's hero.
Darren had good grades in high school, but still not as good as many of his classmates. When he went to college, he majored in physical education, with an eye toward becoming a gym teacher. That was his backup plan, anyway.
After graduation, he got a job as a physical education teacher. But he also got a second job as a substitute gym teacher at a local Christian school. When a permanent position opened up at the school, he jumped at the opportunity. He needed the extra pay. He needed the job security. The job at the Christian school didn't pay as well. But it was easier to get...
He taught physical education at the school for several years. He was popular with the students, who enjoyed his rough-around-the-edges personality. He played the part of the bad ass. He was also popular with the school's female faculty, who enjoyed his piercing blue eyes and black, black hair. Darren's hair was black as the night sky. It shone like a raven's wings. Back then he wore it long, down to his shoulders. Nowadays he kept it close-cropped. He was no longer a bad boy, after all. He was a good Catholic husband and father.
Darren's wife was named Mary. Mary was Catholic, but her entire family had been Catholic for generations. Darren had always been an atheist, but he had always agreed that he would raise their children Catholic. He made this promise to Mary when they were dating. They were senior year of college sweethearts. They were married when they were twenty-four. They had their daughters four years later.
When the girls were brought up for baptism, Darren walked ahead of them, following the priest. Mary held the girls' hands, following Darren. Darren was not religious, but he knew how to participate in a Catholic service. When the priest uttered his prayer, Darren closed his eyes, crossed himself, and said the prayer along with him.
Darren had never told Mary about his teenage years, his alcohol-soaked teen years. To Mary, Darren was a good Catholic husband and father.
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PART 2
Darren's eyes flashed back and forth between lines of text on the page. The sun had long since set outside. The air conditioner had long since exhaled its last breath. Darren was still reading. He didn't make much noise. The only thing you could hear was the occasional snap of his fingers, as he turned the pages of his book. The pages smelled of paper, fresh from the printing press.
He was reading a novel that depicted gay men in an unflattering light. The author was known for his work that did just that. Darren was reading it to get a sense of how and why and when and where; to get a sense of what it was like to be a man who was attracted to other men. The author was known for his books that documented the inner workings of the gay and lesbian community. This was not for his enjoyment. It was for research. Darren couldn't tell you which book this was. He'd read three books by the same author, all of them aimed at highlighting what was wrong with gay men. This book was three inches thick, and had a crease down the middle. The cover was a faded pink. It was a hardcover.
Darren actually started to enjoy it. He wasn't enjoying the plot so much as he was enjoying how he felt when he was reading it. The author was clearly trying to make the book as offensive as possible, but it felt like a challenge to Darren. He felt like he was supposed to feel bad about what he was reading... and yet he didn't. It felt like a challenge: can I make this book interesting? I'm not enjoying it. I'm not enjoying this. But I am enjoying the challenge.
Something else happened, too:
Darren started to get hard. Damn it. His cock pressed against the zipper of his pants. He was starting to get aroused, and he didn't like it. He didn't like that at all.
His cock filled with blood. He felt it push outward.
The more he read, the more he got turned on.
He looked down at the book, not at the words, just at the black and white images. Images of men fucking other men stared back at him. The art style was crude, and the men were ugly and fat and hairy and short. That made it even harder for him to look away.
His cock began to ooze pre-cum. It felt like warm butter was leaking out of him. It slid down his shaft, down past his balls.
He felt his ass pucker. He felt his balls tighten up.
He shut the book and threw it against the wall. The loud sound startled him and he looked around the room, as if someone had caught him. No one had. He was alone. He was home alone.
The book lay on the carpeted floor, its pages splayed out in all four directions, like the legs of a dead bird.
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PART 3
Darren tossed and turned in bed. He didn't know why he couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the guilt that he kept feeling. The guilt was all in his head. It wasn't enough to stop him from reading the book. It wasn't the book's fault that Darren was enjoying it so much.
He thought about an image of an obese man, straddling another man, his chubby face contorted in pleasure, his fingers digging deep into the flesh of the man beneath him. He remembered another image, of two men in a wrestling match, their hard cocks barely concealed by their underwear, their hands sliding up and down their shafts, their eyes closed in ecstasy.
There were images of orgies, one in a gymnasium, one in a locker room. Images of a man being blown by a dozen or more men, all at once. In every image, the men were big and hairy and fat. In every image, the men were having a lot of fun. In every image, Darren wanted to be one of the men being blown, being fucked, being held down.
In every image, Darren saw himself. He saw himself in the book. He saw himself in the art.
His cock was in a state of perpetual arousal. He was hard in a way that he hadn't been in years.
He thought back to when he was in college, when he was in shape, when he had a six pack and strong pecs and a big ol' cock. And a barbell in his nipple, back then. He'd gotten that in his sophomore year in college. He was wild in college.
He remembered the sting of the needle in his nipple, and the pain of the barbell, and the way it felt when he was in the shower and the water hit the barbell and he felt like the pain was like a million splinters in his skin, like a million jagged little knives, like a million little explosions of white-hot pain in his nipple. The way it humped out of his nipple like a tiny, metal mountain.
He remembered the way he had felt during those days, before Mary, before the girls. Before he got married. Before he grew up. Before the responsibilities. Before he became ordinary. Before he became boring.
Darren didn't know why he was thinking about this stuff. It just kept coming back to him. It kept coming back to him. He felt like he was stuck in the past.
The more he thought about it, the more he remembered.
He remembered the way the men at the gym stared at him, their eyes following his chiseled body, his strong arms, his strong back, his strong legs. It made him feel so good to know that so many men were looking at him, so many men were staring at him. He loved it. Sometime during his workout, he would start to imagine that he was holding court with all the men in the room, with all the men who were staring at him. He imagined that he was like a ruler among his subjects, like the man who owned the gym, like the man who owned all of them. It made him feel like a king. It made him feel like a god. Nowadays, he felt like a small and broken man.
