Enlightened Male2000

A Day on the River

Have you ever had something happen that surprised you, something unexpected that changed your life, that energized every fiber in your body?  An event or incident that captured your imagination and altered your perception of life’s predictability?  Such an event happened to me, on a five day cross-country bike ride through the desert with an old friend from college, who had contacted me a couple of months before.  That day we spent on the river took me from the routine trials of life into a mysterious, wondrous, confusing new reality.

Paul had been living in California, where he had taken a job after getting his degree, working for a large accounting firm, making good money and recently transferred back here to Dallas.  We had parted ways when he went off to graduate school.  It had been nearly twenty years.  Pleasantly surprised when he called, we arranged to meet over a couple of beers.

I recognized him when he walked in, waved him over.  He had aged well—the first thing I noticed as he approached the booth.  Twenty years had vanished in the blink of an eye.  Seeing him again, all the old memories came flooding back.  We shook hands, then hugged, glad to have an opportunity to catch up on each other’s lives.

A dimly lit half-bar, half-restaurant, it was a crowded place: live music, lot of drinking and camaraderie.  After moving to the quietest booth we could find, we had been talking about the old days a half hour by the time we finished the first beer.  I was secretly relieved his hair had thinned more than mine.

“Things don’t turn out exactly the way you thought they would, do they?” he said after the waiter delivered the second round.  He shrugged and looked around the dining room.  “I don’t know.  Can’t say I haven’t been happy.  Successful career, terrific wife.”  He shrugged again.  “You hit forty, then wonder where all the time went, what you’ve done with your life.  Sometimes it seems like there should’ve been more, like something’s missing.”

Some of those same thoughts had occurred to me.  “I know what you mean,” I said.  “You think about all the things you haven’t done, but you have your job, your family to think about.”

“What did you end up getting into?” he asked.

“Electrical engineering.  We design and oversee the installation of electrical systems in high-rises.”

Suddenly he seemed distant, like his mind had wandered to something else.  I wasn’t sure he was listening.  He was staring at my forearm, resting on the table, my hand wrapped around a nearly full glass of beer.  His eyes lifted and met mine.  “Sounds exciting.”

“What can I say?  I don’t have the imagination to write books.  Can’t draw or sing or act.  I’m not creative enough to be a politician.  Can’t drive race cars with a family to support.  Too uncoordinated to be an athlete.  Most of what’s left isn’t very glamorous.”

“Sounds like you’re talking about accounting,” he said.

My eyes drifted to the table and I shook my head ironically.

We talked about his wife and daughter, and what it was like living in California.  I told him about my two sons who were going to college back east, about how my wife and I met, and about our trip to Europe last summer.  We talked about old girlfriends and our carefree days in college.  I felt he enjoyed our reunion as much as I did.  After the third beer, we arranged to meet again the following week.

Two months later, our old friendship had been renewed; we had been getting together a couple of time a week.  We took our bikes over to White Rock Lake one Sunday afternoon.  Half way around the lake, we stopped for a break under an ancient live oak tree near the edge of the water.

“You look damn good in those shorts,” he said, looking up at me as I leaned over the bike to get my water bottle.

I glanced down at the black Lycra shorts that fit like a second skin, thinking they didn’t look very flattering.  Tight as they were, it almost seemed I was advertising my genitals.  I sat down beside him, leaned back against the tree and took a long pull from my bottle.

“You stayed in good shape all these years,” he said.

“Good shape?”  I said doubtfully, lifting the seam of the nylon jersey and exposing the extra two inches across my belly.  “What about this?”

“That’s nothing.”  He lifts the bottom of his shirt.  His belly bulges slightly over the top of the waistband.  A symphony of hair encircles his navel, makes the short downward run into his shorts.  “Thirty-six inches, going on thirty-seven.  Up from thirty-two in college.”

“I’ve been thinking about joining a gym,” I tell him.

“You have to go three nights a week to do any good.”

“I figure I can work that in.”

He takes a swig of water and looks back at me.  “I’ll join with you.”

“Great.  There’s a Twenty-Four Hour center half way between your place and mine.  I’ll drop by and check it out.”

Paul looked out over the lake, drew up a knee up and rested his forearm on it.  A moment later he sighed.  “Might do me good to get out three nights a week.”

My eyes shifted to the edge of the lake.  Something was bothering him.  It almost sounded like he had been looking for an excuse to get out of the house.  I looked at him.  “Something going on at home you haven’t told me about?”

“No.  Nothing’s going on.  I just get antsy sometimes, that’s all.”  He loses himself in thought for a moment.  “You ever wonder what happened to the spark?”

“The spark?”

“With your wife.  Sharon and I haven’t made love in a month.”

“You’ve been married twenty years.  We all go through dry spells.”

“It’s not the same as it was.  It’s mechanical.  I still look at the twenty-year-old girls, but it’s not like I want one of them.  It’s like there’s something missing.”

I stared at him a moment, wondering if he’s on the verge of the proverbial midlife crisis.

I was exhausted by the time we completed the second lap, my hair plastered to my head with sweat, my nylon jersey and Lycra shorts wet.  After we loaded the bikes on top of his car, Paul pulled off his jersey and blotted his face.  The hair I had seen on his belly also covered his chest, leaving nipples the size of quarters exposed.  Though slackened by years of inactivity, his chest was broad and beefy; I visualized what it may look like after a few weeks of workouts.

We joined the fitness center the next day, met there again at seven o’clock, gym bags in hand.  In the pristine, well-lit dressing room, we found two empty lockers next to each other.  Down to my underwear, I glanced at him, naked and standing not three feet away, hanging his jeans in the locker.  Caught in a momentary lapse, my eyes drifted down his body, a masculine shape formed and accented by the governing effects of testosterone.  Drawn inward, his cock protruded just over two inches under a trimmed swathe of pubic hair, noticeably thicker than mine.  I would have expected his ass to be hairy and nondescript; instead, like his back and shoulders, it was well-muscled and remarkably hairless.  Pale white, it contrasted with his sun-darkened skin.  Any curiosity I had had about his body had been satisfied.

After an arduous circuit on the weight machines, we ended the session with twenty minutes on the treadmill.  Panting and damp with sweat, I turned off the machine and stepped off of it.  My sleeveless T-shirt and gym shorts were damp.  I wouldn’t have lasted another ten minutes.

“Damn!” he said, leaning against the treadmill, breathing hard.  “I’m in worst shape than I thought.”

“You and me both.”

“I’m thinking a few minutes in the whirlpool sounds good.”

Following him back into the men’s locker room, my eyes dropped to his ass.  I could see it flexing under the thin nylon fabric.  Despite his paunch, I felt a little envious.  Too thin—that’s how I saw myself, at least my arms and lower body.  He had twenty pounds on me with most of it in the right places.  I pictured the pale, hairless cheeks, the shadowy crease that divided them, envious of how masculine he looked in a pair of blue-jeans.  I need this time in the gym more than he did.

…….Read more in Erotic Tales for Enlightened Minds.  Available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon.