Friday morning, Week 4
Josh Striker's desire to validate his aggressive "tolerance before rest" rehab strategy had pushed the limits of my high threshold, and I loved every minute of the maniacal therapy.
"That's it Donnie, that's it!" He howled, as I pushed past last weeks rep numbers in all plyometrics and after the last set of my four week regimen he rushed and embraced my sweaty, spent, tortured body.
It had been exactly four weeks since my severe ankle sprain, for which he discovered me lying on the ground. Josh helped me to my car and handed me his card for physical therapy and soon after the first visit I became his case study.
It turns out I was the perfect candidate with the perfect injury, the will to listen and do everything he said. It had a lot to do with my observation of him running every morning, weeks before the injury, fantasizing about the bulge in his pants while my wife was cold beside me in bed.
"You have exceeded expectations just about every week and your ankle, though still swollen some, as responded beyond what I thought was possible," Josh, a physical therapist, said to me as we lingered in each other's arms after I had finished.
The sun was high in the sky, warming our bodies on this brisk last spring morning. Masturbating to his image in my head, at home, alone in bed, my wife doing something else, was being replaced by deep, truthful banter after workouts.
"But what about my running times?" I said still to hard on myself, knowing while my plyometric exercises were setting records, my running times were still a good minute per mile slower than before I had gotten the injury.
"Oh Donnie," he laughed, somewhat grinning holding back a secret he now wanted to tell me. "That was purposeful."
"But you..." I started to say, confused.
"I set the goal too high, it was unattainable. You seemed to go for it anyway so I just kept pushing you towards something you couldn't get," Josh said when noticed we were still holding each other. Josh sort of looked around released our embrace. "My bad, I was just so excited."
"No, don't be sorry," I said holding his eyes.
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The four weeks were filled with workouts, runs, morning briefings, coffee, going over the numbers, setting daily goals, increasing banter and Josh every day praising me for my accomplishments.
He made me feel valuable and worthwhile and I looked forward to every "date", as my wife Mel would say as I was leaving, with a giddy anticipation. Affirmation is a powerful thing, as is anything firm and Josh emulated firmness, organization and a sleek, sexy, persona.
"Sometimes I wonder if you're cheating on me with Josh," Mel would say jokingly after I returned from coffee. "You are just beaming before and after."
"My ankle's getting better," I would say to her, knowing she knew how important this race was to me. "Laying on the ground, in tremendous pain, I didn't think I had a chance to run the IMT 1/2 marathon and right now I'm going to at least finish."
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Wednesday, Week 3
Towards the end of our morning coffee routine, Josh got a call that had him stand up abruptly, he pivoted and walked out onto the deck of the coffee shop.
I watched his body get tense, that fine, athletically trim and sleek body. His face changed as the call went on, he paced back and forth, even gesturing at times. Josh was so expressive, his face would get serious and excited at the same time pushing me through hard reps during my plyo jumps.
Now, he showed anger and concern as I leered at him from our table. I couldn't stop watching him, tight spandex shorts, biking shirt showing off his perfect torso. I had lost about 15 pounds in just that short time, but I was no where near his athleticism and was beginning to feel better around him.
Josh came back in and sat down, staring at the phone. "She really doesn't understand, Donnie."
"What's that?" I asked and his face looked up into my face.
"What we're doing here," he said, sighed and looked down at the floor. "It bores her. I mean yeah, theres a lot of information but at least listen and think! She just wants to know why it takes me away every morning and that's it, like I don't watch the kids at night or something."
"My wife thinks we're having an affair," I added suddenly, hoping to get a connection point in with similar married strife.
"Ha!" he said abruptly, and then let me infer the unthinkable happening to this 5'6" adonis. "At least THAT she would understand."
I hit a nerve with Josh, my wife's words letting me in on his wife's actions. I couldn't imagine someone cheating on this specimen of a human being, though I took his words at face value.
"That must have been hard," I said, pretending to know.
"The hardest," he said, now looking down. "I'm really, well, I don't mean to burden you with my problems."
How could this perfect man have problems?
"I can handle it, and I'm interested," I said, not realizing I was putting it out there. He looked up, sadness and loneliness showed up on his face.
"We're really just together for the kids sake, and even that's failing," he said. "I knew...no..."
He stopped abruptly and he quickly went back to the numbers on the sheet and the workout information for tomorrow.
We concluded the morning without setting goals, or talking about how I did. He was somber, texting and distracted until he needed to leave to get to work.
The truth was that day I had a lack-luster performance in all of my exercises and running. I honestly expected a call that night canceling everything after letting him expose his personal life to me, on top of my weak arse performance.
I received my usual text - "6 a.m. sharp. Be ready to kick it!"
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Thursday, Week 3
The day after my lackluster workout he showed up excited, a different look on his face. We picked up where we were a couple days prior and I was able to hit my marks for the day. Josh seemed eager to get to the coffee shop and break down the workout and set tomorrow's goals.
"Here," he said handing me a new apple watch. "Training concludes next week, but I want to give you this now."
"Umm, that's a lot Josh," I said, looking at the top of the line watch, already programmed for fitness he said. "I don't know..."
"I told her last night," he said, looking down and then up at me again. "I told her we need to make plans to separate. It's a token of my appreciation for the hard work and letting me work through things on your time."
"Oh my God Josh," I said surprised. "How do you feel?"
"Free," he said, handing me a sheet of paper explaining how to set up our workouts on the watch. "You see, I really, well, have never been totally into her."
"I see," I said as he studied my face, my reaction. There were days with others I had such a wide opening and I would pass on pushing the door open further. I felt empowered. "What are you totally into?"
He smiled slowly, thinking something, rubbing his chin as if to contemplate what to say here, then almost yelling, "I'm into these friggin' numbers!"
He slammed the clipboard on the table, his hand on top, him standing. "You! My man, are a beast!"
I blushed a little, I was totally leading him towards something sexual, not sure what, but hoping a little it could evolve into a different discussion down the road. "Thank you Josh, I'm trying hard."
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Monday, Week 4
We entered the last week of part one of my rehab and my running numbers sucked, which I mentioned we later found out was by design, and he set aggressive goals for the plyometrics. During coffee our conversations got increasingly more personal.
After I far exceeded his goals coming off a weekend of rest, he was giddy with the progress and after setting goals he began to talk about what led them to separation. The usual things, work, kids schedules, her schedules and of course less sex and when they had sex it was more out of routine.
"I knew early on we weren't a sexual match," Josh said. "Well, at least after marriage we weren't because we matched very well before getting married."
"Same thing here, man, I mean you would think we moved to a state where giving a blow job was illegal," I threw in quickly relating to his plight, drawing great laughter from Josh. He paused for a moment, shook his head a little and sipped his coffee. It was as if he wanted to start telling me a story or something.
"What?" I said still giggling from my comment, feeling good about being so up front with someone.
"Oh, nothing, I mean," Josh said, then put down his coffee. "Can I tell you a story and you promise not to judge me?"
"Of course," I said, glad that we were constantly evolving the conversation. "Judgement free zone here."
I felt my cock begin to harden, I felt something sexy was coming and it was going to be exciting. I had no idea what it was going to be about; his wife, or their sex before marriage, or what he was about them that didn't match sexually.
"We were staying with friends the second year we were married." he started, painting a delicious scenario that included a pool, no kids and the mountains. "Our friends lived in Colorado and Claire and I were both still young and having really, really frequent, hot sex."
"I like where this is heading," I said, making sure I was into whatever this was.
"I'm not so sure you will, but you can tell me afterwards," Josh said. "So Jacob, my friend from college, told me he and his wife were heading for a hike and that we could have the pool area. He told me that getting head, laying on the diving board, in the mountain air, was amazing."
I liked where this was going, but couldn't figure out why he was hesitant to tell me about a Rocky Mountain blow job. Josh went on to say that Jacob told him to get in the water and when Josh heard the door slam that they were leaving for the hike to strip naked, jump in and get wet, lay on the edge of the board, dandling legs over, close his eyes and wait to have his cock serviced.
"I did exactly as told. Jacob would fill the women in that I was hanging back and we sure everyone knew their part. The door slammed, I jumped in and stripped off my suit, climbed up on the board naked," Josh said. "The cool water had me less than hard, however the impending act, out in the open, began my cock hardening. It really shot up when I heard her get into the water, my eyes closed tight."
