I met Joe at the first night of the conference. There was food served in the exhibit hall, and Joe and I shared one of those small tables that is only big enough for two. It was one of those events where servers wander through the crowd with small appetizers. As a result, we didn't have to get up and move around, so we sat chatting for about an hour.
After chatting for a bit, we learned that, although we were from different parts of the country, we had a lot in common: we were both married with teenage children -- he had three boys, and I had a boy and a girl -- we were of a similar age and of course we were in the same line of work, hence the both of us being at the conference. (I don't want to say what line of work we're in, or even what city the conference was in -- I just can't stand the thought of anyone I know reading this and thinking that it might be me.) Oh -- and we also seemed to share the same taste in women: there were more than a few attractive and well-dressed women at the conference, and we enjoyed pointing them out to each other and making some quiet, suggestive remarks and jokes to each other.
The evening wore down; we parted company and I made my way back to my hotel room, to do what I often do when I'm travelling: get naked, surf porn on my laptop, and jerk off. I did all three of those things, and, since I like to get up early, had an early night of it and went to bed.
The next morning, I put on shorts and a t-shirt, and headed down to the fitness centre in the hotel. It was quite early -- about 5 am, and I didn't expect there to be too many people there working out. As I entered the room, there was Joe, just getting on the treadmill.
"Hey, good morning" I said. "I see you like the early morning workout too."
Joe smiled back at me. "Yeah," he said. "I like to earn my breakfast first. Then I can reward myself."
I smiled to myself at that. When I`m travelling, I too like to earn things in the morning -- I tell myself that after my workout, I can reward myself with a nice jerkoff session. I do whatever I can to keep me motivated for my personal fitness program. I hopped on the treadmill beside Joe.
We didn't say much to each other during the workout. We both appeared to be running at similar intensities, and we both worked up a good sweat. We had both set our timers for 30 minutes, so we both started our cool downs at about the same time too. We exchanged some more small talk as we grabbed some water from the cooler, and then headed out, back to our rooms.
In the hallway, Joe reached for the elevator button.
"Hold on there," I said. "We have to take the stairs. Taking the elevator after a workout just isn't right."
Joe looked at me. "What floor are you on?" He asked me.
"Twenty two," I replied. "What floor are you on?"
"Eighteen." He paused, looking at me. "Okay, let's go."
With that we went to the other side of the hallway, and started up the stairs. We were walking, not running, and it really wasn't that hard -- just a bit more of a cool down really.
"Do you always take the stairs after a workout?" Joe asked me.
"Usually," I replied. "I think I've gone as high as 28 floors. But it's not as bad as it sounds. Usually, there's no 13th floor." I gave Joe a bit of a grin with that.
"Uh huh. So do you go through another 30 minute workout when you get back to your room? A hundred situps, perhaps?" Joe teased back at me.
I smiled at that. "Well, usually I take a break in front of my laptop, surfing the web, stuff like that."
"You don't start doing work, do you?" Joe asked.
"No," I answered. "It's all me time." I couldn't help smiling again. I was already looking forward to jacking off in front of some fresh porn.
"Oh," Joe replied. "Me time. I suppose that means surfing porn."
I turned to face Joe. He was smiling, but then turned away, looking embarrassed. He sped up a little bit on the stairs, to get ahead of me, by just one step. We were at 12.
Since that was exactly what I meant, I couldn't be mad. I gave a chuckle. "Well, OK, I admit it. When I'm on the road, all alone in my room, with some time on my hands... yeah, I plan to find some fresh porn. And play with myself." Shit, I thought. I can't believe I just told a guy that I'm planning to start jerking off in less than five minutes.
Joe stopped on the stairs and looked back at me. I stopped too. We looked at each other; this time I turned away and moved ahead of him.
"Yeah," I heard Joe say behind me. "That's what I'm planning on doing too."
I turned back to face him. Joe was grinning as we kept going up the stairs. At the 16th floor now I noticed. I grinned back at him. "It's not so unusual, is it?" I asked. "But it seems a little weird to admit it."
Seventeen now. One more floor to Joe's room. "Hell," Joe said, "I usually don't even tell my wife about when I jerk off."
"Me neither" I said. "It's strange, isn't it? I love it when she tells me about playing with herself. And she doesn't have a problem with me jerking off... I even do it in front of her once in a while. I don't know."
We were at 18 now. Joe's floor. He pulled the door open. "Well," he said, "here's where I get off." He stopped, and looked embarrassed again. "I mean..." he started.
I laughed. "I know exactly what you meant."
"Uh," he said, "... do you want to come in for a coffee... maybe we can ... I don't know ... share some of our favourite sites or something..." Joe looked embarrassed again. "Never mind," he said, turning to go into the hallway.
"Sure," I said. "I'd love a cup of that fabulous in-room complimentary coffee."
"Great," said Joe. And with that he led the way down the hallway to his room. Joe used his keycard to open the room. We entered the room -- it looked just like mine, complete with a laptop open at the desk. Joe tended to the coffee machine, and I went over to his laptop.
"Do you mind?" I asked, pointing to his laptop.
"No, go ahead" he said. "Bring up some of your favourite porn." We were obviously starting to get comfortable with the idea of two guys watching porn together.
I did just that. I brought up a site that was based on amateur, user-submitted sites. Joe, having started the coffee, came up behind me and looked over my shoulder. "What have you got?" he asked.
"I like this one," I replied. "It's an amateur site, and it's real people. They post pics from inside their own home... I don't know; I just like looking at real people enjoying themselves more than actors."
"Cool," said Joe. We brought up a couple of postings. Milfs, and straight sex, but we could see that there were all kinds of options... gay, solo, lingerie, cross-dressing... You could see that lots of people didn't want to show their faces, but that didn't detract from it at all.
"That would be so cool to post pics on-line, and think about the people looking at you. Have you ever posted anything yourself?" Joe asked.
I hesitated. I had, but I didn't know if I wanted to admit it. Joe sensed something was up.
"You have, haven't you?" Joe said. I kept my mouth shut, but smiled.
"Come on," said Joe. "Show me your posts."
"I don't know," I said. "I'd feel a little embarrassed."