Back in the Game

by R. W. Clinger

  * * * *

  His running became relentless in his life. The man couldn’t stay in one place for very long. He was always on the go, spirited by life. He constantly visited his friends or traveled to other cities to frequent other long-distance friends.

  His daily runs consisted of two-hour sprints along the Gulf Coast. I viewed the man bare-chested in motion, huffing and puffing, almost always at a full stride. Matthew liked to stay fit; there wasn’t anything in my mind that declared otherwise. He tried to run every day, at random hours. Never was he on a schedule. And never did he accompany someone. His solo activity seemed important to him; a means of his survival on the wicked planet, his solace and away time from the world.

  * * * *

  His singlehood left me in a quizzical state. How could a man not accompany someone when he had wealth, good looks, and his sanity? I couldn’t fathom that. Matthew didn’t sport a girlfriend or boyfriend at his side—ever. He was single and seemed to enjoy his position. I had never witnessed him having a one-night stand with an average Joe or Josephine. Yes, he visited gay and straight bars, but he never left those fun-filled establishments with anyone at his side. He chose his loneliness over company, being nonsexual and alone; someone who didn’t need sex or the baggage that seemed to go along with it. Matthew craved his solidarity like no one else I watched and learned. The man came across as a freak that way, strangely single, without the act of sex in his young life.

  * * * *

  I thought his swimming one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. He was like a dolphin in the swift water. Gracefully, he waved on the Gulf’s surface, rising and falling. His back was a splay of muscles, and his legs were thick and white as he swam. The jock was a free spirit in the blue liquid and seemed content there. His butterfly stroke looked strong and swift, and he moved with a melancholic elegance that I graded as remarkable. A lot people couldn’t swim inside the Gulf because of its swift current, but Matthew was different, perhaps part fish, and something of a spectacle that I was heedlessly drawn to and enjoyed watching.

  * * * *

  I questioned his stupidity. Who wouldn’t? Didn’t he know of my prying, spying, and studying him? Couldn’t he determine my existence in his world? Was Matthew oblivious to my watching, or simply playing a game with me?

  I didn’t know, but would soon find out.

  Our worlds were about to collide as one, and all hell was about to break loose, just as it was expected.

  Chapter 27: Ground Zero

  Downtown Turtle Bay Reef

  Mirar Street

  Coconut Grove Apartments

  Apartment 1-C

  October 1, 20—

  10:41 P.M.

  You have to love what you do in your spare time to create a fun-filled and healthy life. In truth, I enjoyed standing among the thick palms at Matthew’s bedroom window, or what I had called Ground Zero. Hidden there, I studied his bedroom: a walnut dresser, battered settee, two mirrors, a closet with doors, and a stack of tattered paperbacks in one corner. His single window was closed and locked. I perceived the man’s air conditioner was on, which blew cold air over his naked body. The man’s tufts of blond hair over his forehead danced in the chilled breeze.

  His body looked just as beautiful as Tommy Rawe’s: muscular and suntanned in the bedroom’s limited light, which happened to disperse from his computer. His nipples were hard, his abs were stiff, and his cock was eight inches high and almost two inches thick. The man’s legs were spread apart, and both of his hands manhandled his dick.

  The light (a blue-gray-white mix that was rather bleak) didn’t come from a night light or hall light that seeped inside the Mormon’s bedroom. Instead, he watched three naked football players (burly, big-muscled, chiseled, and fatless men with ten-inch cocks) mix on the computer’s seventeen-inch screen. The threesome played hard in what looked like a locker room.

  One beefy dude with red hair was sprawled over a narrow bench while his frisky teammates toyed with his flesh. A second football player (big as a house with white hair and a Herculean frame) banged the center guy’s bottom while a black-haired wall with a chest of hair shoved his cock down the middle man’s throat. What happened among the three was an unlimited scene of mischievous sex, which Matthew seemed to enjoy.

  As he watched the three football players on his computer, his hands attacked the cock between his sweaty thighs. The runner/swimmer thrust his fists up and down in speedy motion. He bucked his hips a dozen or more times, looked as if he had become breathless. His eyes rolled into the back of his head for a few seconds and then surfaced. His fist-rush continued for the next thirteen minutes. The veins in his wrists looked as if they stretched, and his chest was soon covered in a thick sweat. Again, his eyes rolled into the rear of his skull, and he puffed for air, pleasuring himself, nonstop and without discouragement.

  I knew the guy was going to shoot. Eventually, the Mormon on the bed closed his eyes, arched his hips, and cranked out white ejaculate from his firm cock onto his chest. Thick, white semen glowed on his torso, accessorizing his pointed nipples, rigid abs, and filling his dented navel. A string of semen hung from the tip of his dick, which he brushed away with a few fingers. He went somewhat limp on the bed, worn out from his solo jack-event.

  Frankly, I enjoyed it when a man ate his own ejaculate. He fingered the semen up with a few fingertips, shoved the threesome inside his mouth, and swirled his tongue around his digits, consuming his entire treat. He moaned on his bed with satisfaction, but I really couldn’t tell because of the twenty-five feet that separated us. I was quite sure he had enjoyed himself, though, since twinkles did occur at the edges of his eyes, proclaiming his joy and lust.

  Once his feeding ended, he fetched a towel by his bed, which he had placed there prior to his jack-session. He used the cotton fabric to clean up. Consecutive swirls with the towel removed the residue from his cock’s head and the gooey semen on his tight stomach.

  My exposure happened when he stood from his bed and dropped the used cotton towel inside his Martha Stewart hamper to wash during his next laundry session. Perhaps he had noticed me somewhat shifting my weight from one foot to the next inside the collection of palms. I was quite sure he saw me at the corner of his left eye—a sliver of my arm or one of my shoulders—and quickly turned his head in my direction, spotting another part of my torso or limbs. In doing so, he immediately dropped the towel on the floor, missing the hamper by just a few feet, and rushed to the window in his beautiful buff.

  Once at the window, he opened the screen, popped his torso out, looked from his left to right, searched me out, and yelled, “Hey, I know who you are! I know what you’re doing!”

  How long did he stand there at his bedroom in the raw with his tight-looking chest gleaming in the limited light? How many seconds ticked by as he acted like a snow owl, slowly shifting his head from left to right, right to left, and left to right again? If he knew who I was, why did he stand there with his dick still hard and a drop of ejaculate hanging from its tip for all his neighbors, street walkers, and others to see?

  I was already gone, vanished, escaping the circle of thick palms. Feeling hard between my legs, I shambled away from that area and fled across the street, into a stranger’s backyard. My travels took me around an in-ground pool that was twelve-feet deep and then to a playground in the distance. For the next three minutes, I circled back to Matthew’s building, saw that his computer was turned off, as well as his lights. Saddened by my undiscovered glory, pouting, I took a cab back to my apartment. I deemed the night tiresome, but not entirely uneventful, and eventually went to bed.

  Chapter 28: History of a Confrontation

  I knew our game during the next twenty-some hours had changed. I wasn’t a complete idiot, and neither was Matthew. Of course, he watched me, following me to Palm Field for practice and out to lunch at The Seaside Reef Bar & Grille. I knew he was at The Carlisle Shop and then at The Coffee Place for a latte. He followed me to the groce
ry store where I purchased a week’s provisions, and other places, which I knew kept him busy and on task, labeling the man as he had probably labeled me: stalker.

  Matthew knew where I lived because he followed me home. I took a long and exhausting walk along the Gulf for exercise, basked in the night’s brisk and melancholic air, and eventually ended up at Razor’s, a frozen yogurt place on Sea Street. Following my walk, I hobbled back to my apartment, needing to rest my ankle. Part of me believed the Mormon would pay me a visit, but he didn’t. Maybe he had better things to do with his valuable time. The city was filled with gays who just happened to find him attractive. I was quite sure a number of them had an interest in men and were substituting him for their unaffectionate lovers, just as I was for Tommy Rawe.

  He snapped pictures of me in the last twenty-four hours with his cellphone: of my face and shoulders, of my ass and narrow hips, of my splayed back and hands, of my legs and limp dick, of my small ears and corded neck, and of my damaged ankle. He took more pictures of me than I could count. A hundred or more. Two hundred. Click. Click. Click. Matthew gained more knowledge of me than I of him. The man absorbed everything he needed to learn about me for his own personal reasons. And with his collected details, I had pretty much guessed he had reacted with positive comments, just as I had about him when being a voyeur in his life.

  “You look good, Shane.”

  “You could be a model.”

  “How did you get so damn handsome?”

  * * * *

  Downtown Turtle Bay Reef

  Shell Street

  Turtle Bay Reef Apartments

  Apartment 3-B

  October 3, 20—

  11:02 P.M.

  I was not alone that night in my apartment, I realized. The door to the apartment squeaked open, and there were footsteps on the living room floor and breathing inside my bedroom. I saw Matthew’s looming shadow at the base of my bed, over my feet. His breathing was soft and smooth, and his figure was unmoving. The Mormon’s smell was familiar. A mix of his heavy sweat and peppermint breath told me who he was.

  “Matthew, you came.”

  “I did. Were you expecting me?” A looming sneer folded over his handsome face, which I thought disturbing.

  “I was. You’re a little late.” I leaned to my right and flicked on a Tiffany lamp, which rested on an oval nightstand. Seconds passed, and the room filled with a brush of light: a dim peach hue outlined in navy blue.

  “My apologies,” he said. At his right side was a wooden baseball bat that he swung to and fro like a golf club.

  I wanted to ask him how he had found his way inside my apartment, but my view shifted from the bat to Matthew, and then back to the bat.

  “Do you plan on using that?” I asked, pointing to the weapon.

  “Only if you don’t listen to me.”

  “You’re threatening me.”

  “Call it what you want.”

  “Listen,” I started to say, but he immediately cut me off.

  “No, you listen,” he said, shaking his head and pointing the tip of the bat in my direction. “You’ve been following me for a few weeks now. Everywhere I go, I see you there. I’m not sure why. And to tell you the truth, I really don’t want to know why. I’m just here to tell you to knock it off, or I’ll knock this bat in to your head and blind you.”

  I was silent and motionless on the bed. Visions of Matthew swinging the wooden tool against my skull surfaced at my temples. I saw blood in my eyes, a cracked nose, bloody lips, missing teeth, and then darkness.

  Attempting to calm down, obtaining a sense of sanity, wanting the stranger—but he wasn’t a stranger at all, was he?—to begin to understand me, I said in a soothing tone, “But I like you. I’ve always liked you, Matthew. You should get to know me. I would never hurt you.”

  “I’m not into you,” he said. “You’re nothing to me. You’re no one. I’d appreciate it if you left me alone. Is that going to be too hard to accomplish?”

  “It isn’t.” I shook my head, having never seen his threatening side, frightened of him.

  “Because I’ll use the bat on you if you don’t leave me alone,” he said, continuing to swing the device to and fro in his hand.

  “You can leave now. I won’t follow you again. It’s over between us.”

  “There was nothing that started between us, Shane. That’s what I need and want to clarify tonight. There wasn’t an us, and there never will be us.”

  But there was an us among the space of my fucked-up mind. In my world, that unsteady and unpredictable place of misshapen thoughts, I had lost Tommy Rawe and tried to replace him with the college student. My chasing game started on the morning Tommy left my apartment, and I had mastered it up to that point. But in the same hand, I had failed my duty, unable to fill Tommy’s shoes. I had hurt and confused Matthew on various levels, which caused him to believe that I was somewhat lethal or on a pathway to destroy him. A line was crossed on my end, and one that I couldn’t erase and do away with, having already caused problems in his life and mine. My sanity was questionable, with or without a baseball bat positioned at my head, ready to swing against one of my temples.

  “I’m leaving. Don’t let me see you around. I really don’t want to hurt you, but if I have to, I will.”

  I had tears at the corners of my eyes. My chest swelled, and I choked on my own breath. A grunting sound escaped me, but I couldn’t decipher exactly what I was trying to say.

  “This visit was just a warning. The next time I come around, I won’t be as pleasant.” He grinned at me in a rather ludicrous action and turned away from me. In a matter of seconds, he left my apartment with his bat, swinging it upon his exit.

  I wanted to follow him out of the apartment and wherever he planned to go for the rest of the night. My chase was over, though, because I had comprehended its dangerous and hurting consequences. I told myself I wouldn’t bother him again. Never. Matthew had made his point, and I had killed whatever emotions that floated in my mind for him.

  * * * *

  That night, I tried to fall asleep but couldn’t. I still imagined the Mormon standing inside my bedroom. The sneer on his face startled me to my core. Gathering dreams and sleep was useless, a waste of my time. Instead, I stared at the ceiling and thought about a cup of coffee and some program on Logo to watch. Maybe I could fall asleep on the sofa, or maybe not. I didn’t fetch a coffee or get out of bed, though. I stayed on the cotton sheets and attempted to sleep by closing my eyes. Suffering from insomnia until dawn, when the sun filled my apartment’s bedroom with blistering red-orange-white-yellow light that warmed my face, I finally slept peacefully.

  Chapter 29: Briefs Bar, Revisited

  Downtown Turtle Bay Reef

  Sponge Dock Way

  Briefs Bar

  October 4, 20—

  11:03 P.M.

  The Briefs Bar was occupied with half the queer population in southern Florida. Beefcakes in string bikinis served fruity drinks at the bar. The dance floor was packed with colorful flamers, closeted cops, muscular bodybuilders, and a variety of blue-collar hotties who just wanted to have loads of fun in each other’s company for the night. Classic music by The Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, The Velvet Underground, and Blue Oyster Cult filled the bar. From my position at the bar, seated beside a molten steel mechanic, I saw that most of the chiseled patrons were shirtless, sweaty, and high on something.

  Among those evening visitors were Aaron Fielding and his twins, Tab and Tad. The three were bare-chested on the dance floor, grinding together. Their kissing became a show. They locked tongues together, and nipples were pinched while they danced. At one point, to my surprise, Aaron knelt, untied his boyfriends’ shorts, yanked out their identical dicks, and started blowing them at the same time. A circle of men made room on the dance floor for the trio’s sex-play. Narrow gaps between dancing bodies allowed me to view Aaron’s laborious chore. He bobbed his head to and fro, handling one cock and then the other
with his palm. He balanced himself on his knees while licking and lapping at the pair of cocks with his extended tongue when he wasn’t sucking them.

  When did the twins discharge their thick ejaculate on Aaron’s rugged face? I really didn’t know since there was a Drag Queen Race Night unfolding at the bar. Holly Goballsy stood center stage with her microphone, drawing more queer patrons on the dance floor, blocking my view of Aaron’s wild play. Holly sang the theme song to Speed Racer and introduced eight drag queens to the stage: Cindy Melons, Carlota Champagne, Rainbow Glitter, Chanel Minx, Marpessa Desire, Olivia Splen-Fabulous, Francine Knockerknees, and Ivory Tusk. Holly then calmed the yelping, whistling, and chaotic crowd.

  Following her threats of ripping balls off if men didn’t zip their Botox-injected lips, she told the audience, “The first performance is by Chanel Minx. I believe she’ll be singing something by Madonna.”

  As Chanel went center stage and started singing “Material Girl,” my left elbow was nudged by a bald Prince Charming with light amethyst-colored eyes.

  “Excuse me.”

  “You’re good,” I said, enjoying my strong drink, which consisted of a gin and tonic with very little ice and a sliver of lime.

  PC sat by me in the empty bar stool and checked me out from head to toe. Following his analysis, he said, “I know you.”

  “You probably don’t.”

  “I do. You’re Shane Polk. The Eagles’ linebacker last year. You fucked up your left ankle and was then out for the season. Rumor had it that you went to Pittsburgh for rehab.”

  I wanted to object to everything that the guy said, but couldn’t. People knew me, and my ankle story. I couldn’t hide from any of the details and my life as a football celebrity. I was a pretty good all-star player until my accident on the field the previous year. Some could have even considered me famous, but on a minimal level. It was hard to lie to my fans, particularly ones that respected me like PC. I didn’t lead the bastard on and make him believe I was someone else.