"Final rules of the cathedral:
A: Make sure you clean the benches off when you're done. Nobody else wants to walk around here smelling like Aspercreme.
B: Don't stare at those sluts at the squat racks for too long. They love the attention but will shame you for giving it to them. Won't be a problem for you, I'm sure.
And C: Don't get too into your head thinking that people are looking at you and judging. People come here to improve themselves. Besides, everybody will be too busy staring at me to notice you."
I'm trying terribly not to concentrate on Ivan's muscles contracting as he supplements every word with a hand gesture. His facial expressions. The swarthy Portuguese ancestry. The relaxed masculinity. All makes my eyes dilate.
He asks me a question and I stutter something like an idiot. The years of conversations I've had with him in my head fade away. The repertoire of his interests that I've studied up on to relate to him fizzle in a dementia haze.
Should I go with the honesty policy instead? Let him know that I've just about rubbed all the skin off of my cock beating off to his daily thirst traps? That I have a gigabyte worth of pictures I screenshot from his stories that I've stared at for an embarrassing amount of time? That I've developed an Olympiad-long emotional connection with him before we even shook hands and introduced ourselves to each other four minutes ago?
"I-I'm also a whiskey connoisseur," I repeat myself as I trail behind him. His compression shirt hugs the striations of his back. He's tall, dark, and brutally beautiful, with a little steatopygia padding his taut, muscled glutes.
"I can tell you've been connoisseu-ing all night," he says. "Try to keep up, abuelito."
The surprise of life is that even living long enough to be dubbed a sexagenarian, there were still new emotions to be discovered. The incredulity of seeing this collection of pixels I've lusted after turned flesh and blood. The exhilaration that he knew I existed. The nervousness of what's happening and the excitement of what could be. All combined to create a new feel.
"Up, up, up," Ivan yelps out, fingers barely tapping under the bar that I'm struggling to lift up.
"Yooo. What's up, bro," I hear as a familiar face pops into my peripherals: Darius, a recurring character from Ivan's Instagram feed. This was his ecosystem. He only hung out with unthreateningly attractive muscle queens, but it was understood that he was the de facto star of the show.
"This is Bradley and Connor," Darius continues. Two more muscle Mary's pop into my eyesight. "This sexy couple are gonna pitch in on the rental in Palm Springs."
"Nice," Ivan certifies, staring them up and down. "Who's the top and who's the bottom?"
The couple stare at each other with furrowed brows.
"Don't think that's a proper question to ask people you just met, bro," the blond silverback lisps.
"You the bottom," Ivan shoots back.
The iron bar compresses against my ribcage and I struggle to gasps out an SOS.
"Oh shit!" Ivan exclaims, lifting the bar and re-racking it. I continue to labor for oxygen. "Uh, this is my new client, Roy."
"It's Ray," I correct him, in between breaths.
The guys practically look through me, with only the tacit acknowledgment that there was somebody in their airspace that they needed to talk around.
"It sucks that life didn't smile on us and give us those traits, but that's just the way things are," one of my best friends, George, laments on a group FaceTime later that night. "Men like that were never naturally attracted to men with master's degrees and soft hands."
"Not unless those soft hands have paper cuts on them from counting massive amounts of dinero," adds Richard, the septuagenarian Samantha of our crew, who always fashioned himself the white-collar Liberace. "You only have to be as attractive as Benjamin Franklin."
Like the rest of the homo hoi polloi, Rich had spent his entire life endearing himself to the Greek Gods of our community. Cutouts from Men, Instinct, and Playgirl magazines littered his refrigerator. Colt videotapes were replaced by Sean Cody DVD's, which were replaced by terabytes worth of illegally obtained videos. One side of his closet housed Armani business suits and Purple Label polos while the other half was cluttered with leather outfits, accoutrements, and engineering boots of different lengths, wear, and tear.
He resented the fact that these beautiful men never gave attention to the excellence he worked hard for, and also for being his main source of weakness. During the last ten years and began to play the game the way they wanted to play. Flights were booked to Barcelona. Houses were rented in Mykonos. Tables were reserved at Michelin starred restaurants in Paris.
Rich is the guy taking the photo of some sexy guy doing a goofy pose in front of the Pisa Tower. He's the guy on the opposite side of the table that you never see as some model Instagrams his coq au vin. He's the "uncle" that every hot guy has when questioned about the obvious dynamics between the two.
"I lust after them and they lust after experiences they can't provide for themselves," he continues. "Things become a lot easier once you stop trying to complicate them."
"Jesus Christ, these guys aren't deities," Cary finally chimes in. "I understand how compelling youth and beauty can be, but these aren't accomplishments."
"I think the engineering he's put into his physique is definitely worthy of appreciation," I say. "I mean, it's an artistry in and of itself that..."
"Please," Cary cuts me off. "He's not some modern day Michelangelo or David. He's just another boy on a boat with manufactured substances running through his veins, who doesn't want to get a real job, trying his damnest to burn images out of his head while convincing people he's having a fun time doing it."
Even at his age, being a top in a metropolis full of begging bottoms meant that Cary never really starved. When the Viagra kicked in, it sent enough blood to his cock that looked impressive from any angle you photographed it at. He couldn't get them to stay, but the boys did come by.
"He has a real job," I remind them.
"The oldest one there is," Rich jokes.
"He's a trainer."
"He almost killed you today," George reminds me.
"It was a great session. He taught me a lot of things..."
"Get a hold of yourself, wrinkles," Cary cuts me off again. "Just because you have a little schoolgirl obsession with this man doesn't mean you have to be his advocate. He's just another vapid, solipsistic Instahoe fucking for a fee just like the rest of them."
"I'm with him," George agrees. "Just because you've architected some personality for him in your head doesn't mean that that's who he is. No point in trying to convince yourself or anybody else that his protein farts smell like Diptyque."
"Either rent him out for a while or deposit your desires for him into a Kleenex and get on with your life," Rich advises. "No point in giving some hooker your daily bread."
"And it definitely wasn't worth moving to the reddest, red state just for the infinitesimal chance that he'll acknowledge you as being anything more than some creepy, old man thirsting after him."
While Ivan wasn't my entire reason for moving to Ft. Lauderdale, I'd be lying if I said the opportunity to be close to him didn't rank high on the "pros" list when making my decision. With retirement came a lot of unstructured time. Teamed up with the loneliness of living alone and an extensive collection of top shelf whiskey--that had been abused every since Covid hit--my anxiety about being found face down, capsized in my pool started increasing.
With a scant amount of friends and family scattered all over the country, I'd decided spending my dotage in Ft. Lauderdale was the best option. I have a newly divorced, younger sister here and nieces and nephews I barely know. My friend Randy seems to be living a retiree dream with a couple of other gay grandaddies and a few younger bears and otters who adore them. Plus, Ivan was taking personal clients at the moment and was looking for people who wanted to change their lives.
I don't believe in coincidences.
"Look, you know he's not the reason I moved down here," I say, unconvincingly. "And it's not just about sex and I'm not being delusional about him. Trust me, with this road map of wrinkles directing towards my eyes and my extensive love of carbs, I'm aware I'll never be the object of his affection."
I sigh and continue:
"I enjoy sex just like every other man, but I can keep my mind busy enough so that it's not on a 24 hour lust rotisserie. It's not about that, and I'm not looking for a relationship with him either. I... I just want to get to know him and develop something real between us, I guess."
"Better off buying that attention from him," Rich says. At this point, he's leaned all the way into the Svengali role. I think more than the sex, he got off of being able to control these men who he knew would never be with him naturally. He had a tangible power that he held over them. They smiled at him. They laughed at his jokes. They came back for more. That was as real as finding love got at this age.
"I've been around this world," Rich continues. "Everybody's unique, but some things are universal. Don't sit around fumbling for offerings, trying to beg this man to care about you on a deeper level. Buy what you want from him and let him be."
"It means more to me than that," I say, defeatedly.
"Seriously, there were arrogant mental cases all over Ohio that you've never gave a nickel or a nice word to, but you'll move across the country just to wipe his brow while he's doing sit-ups," George says.
"Better than the sordid risks you take to get dick," I shoot back, finally taking a defensive position. "Loitering around dark parks and being some gas station glory hole vacuum."
"At least I occasionally get the chance to suck on something that isn't a Werther's Original, grandpa."
"You both sound pathetic," says the top.
"Seriously," George continues. "He's not going to reward you because you care about 'the real him' and not just his assets."
"Especially since his assets are 'the real him'," Rich adds.
"He's a hunk and humans are superficial. I'm sure people are nicer to him than their own grandmothers," George resumes.
A gaggle of agreements.
"He was blessed when he received the bounty of the genetic lottery. He doesn't need anything more than that."
Cary goes on a coughing fit then puts in his final two cents before asking to be let go: "Amazing how seemingly smart men in all aspects of life become bumbling idiots when faced with a beautiful slut with a nice ass." Cary coughs again and then carries on:
"We missed our shot of purchasing a gym membership at building up currency in this fucked up gay demimonde when we were younger. Maybe out of laziness, fear, whatever. But all of that shit fades away and those guys end up middle aged therapy failures when they can't figure out why the world is no longer kowtowing to them."
