He rises slowly from the bed. The movement does not cause his sleeping partner to even stir. The exhaustion caused by repeated twelve-hour shifts ties the sleeper to the bed as if by silken threads. Even the sharp buzz of the alarm has no effect. Turning off its drone, the still-drowsy early riser makes a mental note to try to wake his other half before leaving the apartment for work.
He goes into the bathroom, turns on the radio, pisses away the first hard-on of the day. Goes to the kitchen, winces in pleasure over a glass of grapefruit juice, and starts a pot of coffee on its way to per
king. Returning to the bathroom, he sits, shits, stands, shaves. Turns on the water in the tub, measuring its temperature with a quick sweep of the hand, then turns a dial upright, changing the origin of the flood from faucet to showerhead. Another check to make sure the first bracing coldness from the pipes has subsided. He steps inside and begins to wash the previous evening from his skin.
The rush of water beats a counter-rhythm to the laid-back jazz of his favorite morning radio station. He runs a soapy hand across his chest and smiles, remembering the most recent episode of a cable TV show with an all-black cast he’d seen. It had begun with one of the male actors getting caught beating off in the shower. All of the men on the show were fine, but to him, this one seemed better looking than the rest. He was not sure why. Perhaps it was his thick but muscular body—so like his sleeping partner’s—or his mocha skin and smoothly shaven head. Or maybe it was the character he played, the image he projected: a solid, stable black man, hard-working, devoted to his family. All so very attractive and still so very rare to see on television. Perhaps, too, it was the all-too-quick shot of a bare, fat brown ass beamed across the cable wires for the entire nation to see that convinced him to give the actor his props.
He leans a shoulder against the wall of the shower and closes his eyes. I am the guy from the TV show beating off in the shower (a blur of water bouncing off a bald brown head). I am beating off in the shower with the guy from the TV show (a curving arm around bare wet shoulders, pulling close). I am in the shower beating off the guy from the TV show (warm drops of water licked from the neck, lips pressed together in a kiss).
His right hand pauses, slowly curls around his rising dick. How long has it been since he and his partner made love? A shared shower almost a month ago, each soaping the other’s familiar back before dammed-up passion overtook them. He hates their current mismatched schedules—one working early shifts, the other late—the overtime, the few hours in the evening when they are both in the apartment together and awake. They long for some kind of break, a vacation, but they have goals in mind: a newer car, a house. So they must work and save. All that’s understood, but still…
Each time he closes his eyes to avoid a spray of water in his face he sees another image: A pen and ink cartoon, two lovers cavorting in the rain. (He grabs his filling meat.) An X-rated video, a pair of honey-drenched Brazilians in dappled sunlight making acrobatic love beside a waterfall (a long slow squeeze). Showering years before with a guy tall enough to be a basketball star (a quickening pulse), who had leaned against the soap-filmed tiles (pull), bent over (up), and spread his caramel-colored ass cheeks (slide down), yearning. (He’s slowly stroking now.) The freshly cleaned hole inside had winked (move up), flexed like a begging mouth (down), urging him to fill it with his manhood. (Faster, he’s beating faster now.) Later, his well-fucked but still insatiable partner had turned him around in the tiny stall (no, not yet, almost there), and tried by force of will to shove his soap-slicked tube of black steel deep into his ass. (Better stop for now.)
He covers the showerhead with his left hand to slow the water down. It trickles through his splaying fingers in a steady stream. He sticks out his tongue, imagines lapping at liquid gold from a heavy, midnight-black cock, warm piss spreading through the velvet down of his hairy chest. (“Always knew you was a freak,” his partner had teased him when he’d confessed some of his youthful sins.) His dick leaps, a dolphin breaching from the curling mass of pubic hair. He reaches out to soothe it back down under the waves.
He removes his hand from the nozzle, and the water returns in force. He can twist the showerhead until it pulses sharp needles of water, thousands of tiny pinpricks on his skin. He turns to face the rear wall of the stall, spreading arms and legs. Can almost feel clamps forming around his wrists and ankles. He sticks out his furry butt. The water’s bite is the lash of a cat-o’-nine-tails wielded by a hooded, harnessed S and M master. (“Yeah, but you like that I’m a freak. I’m your freak,” he’d said, diving again between his lover’s legs.) Mounted, on display as part of a demonstration on a festival-crowded public street, he can feel all eyes on him, the crowd sensing his craving, wanting either to wield the whip themselves or to feel its sting on their own skin. From somewhere a growl comes up as if the song of a pride of panthers prowling a twilit veldt had been brought to him on a gust of wind. He coughs, regains his composure. Realizes the sound was coming from him. He goes back to scrubbing torso, legs, and ass with shower gel.
Again he closes his eyes, again steps into a dream: Two athletes in an otherwise deserted locker room. He’s seen them before, saw them run earlier this Olympic week, imagined them lovers competing against each other in a race, the 100, or 200. Or was it last night, and not even track, but something else—boxers from rival countries sharing an embrace after their match; sun-darkened beach volleyball players brushing a thin skin of sand from each other’s arms; mahogany swimmers, sleek as otters, rising from the pool, chlorine spilling from their pores. Soccer players tossing off their shirts in celebration, wrestlers shimmying from one-piece suits, decathletes sliding out of nylon shorts…
One man is sculpted ebony, the other hammered bronze. Sweaty from their contest, they take to the showers. Blunt fingers of water drum against their skins, replaying the first music of the world, the call of rain singing against dark bodies. The two watch each other warily, soaping up, massaging tired muscles under the steady stream of water.
A casual touch. An “it means nothing” bump. A half-joking slap on the ass. Make it all seem playful, just a game, just like kids in school. Don’t let on how intensely a fire burns inside each one for the other. No, not yet. For now, it’s all a joke. The two dark towers rising from their crotches, however, prove this joke is real.
A slightly longer touch. A deeper stare. Soon they cannot contain themselves, are in each other’s arms, touching, tasting, kissing, holding. The hairy chest of the lighter man scratches across the other’s smooth dark skin like a hundred scrabbling fingernails. Each reaches for the other’s hardness. The chatter of the shower is like the repeated crashing of waves against the shore, or the cheering of a million rapt onlookers. They begin to beat each other off.
(Faster, he’s beating faster. One hand curls up to brush against the tender aureole of his nipples. He pinches it erect. His eyes close tighter, concentrating. He sees his destination dead ahead.)
A slightly graying older man, their coach, joins the others in the shower. No words of approbation, no complaints, he simply strips and joins them. (“I’m into older men,” a young guy had whispered to him and his partner once, offering his body as filling in a lover sandwich. “You know—that Daddy thing.”) His head spins, imagining himself to be the darkest of the three athletes at play (slowly), lying on the cool damp floor of the shower (there), intently sucking the coach’s heavy, cum-filled balls (squeeze), his tongue flicking across the low-slung nut sack like a flame, willing it to catch fire, burn, drain. (His hand beats faster.) His mouth fills with water (beats). He spits it out (his hand). The third man’s close-cropped head bobs at his crotch (squeeze). A hungry mouth gobbles up his meat (faster). The coach’s massive hand comes down to caress his face (pulse). He pumps his hips into the sucking mouth (there), urging it to take more, swallow all (his hand. up). Hears a moan of satisfaction and looks down (beats. slides down). The vision of a shirtless track star’s blazing smile and wave to the crowd during his victory lap fills his blurring sight (pull. faster). Sees those full dark lips around his meat (no, not yet).
He slides against the tile wall of the shower. (His hand beats faster.) Feels his lover’s velvet skin against him every night, seductive as rainforest mist (almost). Even the alarm has no effect (there). Wince of grapefruit juice (better). Framed shot of fat brown ass (stop now). Rain-rhythm, first music, the distant sound of jazz (move up). Mismatched schedules (stroke down). Pen and ink cartoons. Magazines. X-rated videos (beating faster now). Soap-slicked tube of black steel up his ass (beat). Sharp liquids
warm and spreading. (His hand beats faster.) You like that I’m your freak (his hand). Chattering cheering onlookers (beats faster). Sharp needles (his heart) of the shower (beat faster). Bodies thick so like his sleeping partner (faster). You know, that Daddy Thing (almost). Chocolate mocha skin (there). I am the TV show. (Hishandbeatsfaster.) That velvet fat brown velvet ass fat against him fat velvet brown every night (stroking). Skin (almost there) A shot—
He cries out—cannot help it, has to scream—grunts and growls and cries. He cums. Blurts out Damn, Shit, Gawddamn it as he pulses (gawd. shit. aww, damn), exhaling all the air from his heaving lungs. Thick juice continues to spill, keeps on flowing, pumping from his dick as if from a hose. His spinning head slowly slows, returns to earth. He notices for the first time the milky film of night on his unbrushed teeth, the goosebumps on his arms, how cold the water of the shower has become, the blare of news from the radio (“Mind if I join you?”), the nutty scent of burning coffee walking through the door, his partner pulling back the shower curtain to unveil him standing there (“Guess I moved too slow…”), deflating cock still in his hand, dripping water, dripping cum, his familiar cough, smile and raised eyebrow, raspy first-thing-in-the-morning voice asking, “Aren’t you going to be late for work?” as all the week’s released frustrations, desires and dreams, a sticky goo between his fingers, splashed onto the shower’s walls, spelled out in wriggling letters on the flowered plastic curtain, or sliding down his legs, get calmly washed away, eddying, pooling in the water at his feet, swirling slowly, oh so slowly, down the drain…
What’s Real
Bootney Farnsworth
I first saw Tanisha as I was walking through the mall on a Sunday afternoon. I was there scooping up a few housewares. I found the mall a lot less hectic on Sunday afternoons. I don’t know if it’s because folks were sleeping off the partying from Saturday night or they were getting their eat on at their parents’ houses. I’d usually be at home watching “NFL Sunday Ticket,” but I had to get the crib ready for inspection. That’s what I call it when mom comes over for dinner. As I made my way to the mall exit, I spotted her trying on shoes (what else). She was dressed as if she had just gotten out of church, a nice dress with stockings, blue I think. Anyway, I was down the hall before my flirtatious nature as well as my curiosity sent me back in her direction.
As I turned the corner into the shoe store she was taking off the shoe she was trying on. I feasted on the sight of her sexy-ass legs underneath her stockings. While she was taking off the shoe, I could see up the back of her thigh. I closed my mouth before she saw me standing there dumbfounded. I gathered myself and sat down next to her. “Shouldn’t you be in church passing out blessings?” I asked.
“Excuse me?” her lips released in response. I watched every syllable fall off them.
“I mean, you’re an angel, right? You should be passing out blessings, then.”
She responded to the corny-ass line as I expected, with the “yeah right” look and a smack of the lips.
“My bad, that was corny as hell, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”
“How about ‘Hello, how are you? My name is…’ ”
I stood up. “Hello, how are you? My name is Anthony.” I extended my hand.
“Oh, it’s too late for that now. You have been filed under ghetto-ass, playa wannabes.” She laughed.
A sexy-ass woman with a sense of humor, that’s my Tanisha. We’ve been going out for a few months now, five to be exact. Funny thing is, for as long as we’ve been together we’ve never gotten down to it, if you catch my drift. Not that I wasn’t trying; heaven knows I was. However, Tanisha and I had a serious discussion about her attitude toward sexual relationships. She told me that she was different from other females. I thought she was running that tired-ass game everyone uses to try to distinguish themselves from all the exes and the nexts. But as she delved into her past and told me things I would have never even begun to guess about her, I became convinced that she was very different. She went on to say that the act of sex itself was nothing. “I mean, dogs hump each other” is how she illustrated her point. “Real sex, lovemaking, is done with every ounce of your being. Making yourself a slave to each other’s wishes, desires, and pleasures.” A lot of the things she shared with me about her past bothered me. As a man, it was hard to deal with the fact that my woman was “worldly.” Nonetheless, these are the experiences that made her who she was. The following months gave me time to deal with those issues, as well as spend time focusing on the person rather than her body. So for the first time in a while, I had actually gotten to know the lady I was with before we did the damn thang.