Get a Grip

Male masturbation gets a bad rap in media. When it features, it's usually the butt of a joke, something gross, uncouth, or pathetic. Compare and contrast female masturbation, which is generally cast as alluring and empowering.

This collection of single-writing-session vignettes is my attempt to redress the balance.

For clarity: these pieces are about men pleasuring themselves, including one trans man and some allusions to male/male sexual activity. If you are not attracted to men, you will probably not find much to enjoy here.

***

Bill

Once a year, in late spring or early summer, Bill disappears. He books time off work, leaves the kids with Marie, and spends a long weekend in a cabin up in Kentucky, with a few easy novels and a sixer of cheap beer.

It's Saturday afternoon. Bill's out on the back deck, half-listening to the Steve Miller Band on his old stereo, taking deep breaths of the clean, sleepy air. His stout body slouches in his chair like a bear in the sun. If there's a deeper peace than this, he hasn't found it yet.

Back home, he doesn't jack off. He's older and busier now than he once was, and, when the moods do strike him, he has Marie. But out here, with a little time to clear his head, he feels that old, familiar itch again, stirring from hibernation as it does every year.

His left hand - his non-beer hand - drifts towards his fly.

Bill's cock is a fat, healthy one with a little curve to the left. In the spirit of the weekend, he lets it take its time getting hard, resting it in the palm of his hand and focusing on the cool breeze tickling his skin. He's no exhibitionist, but he likes doing this outdoors; it reminds him of hasty fumbles behind the stables, and of hiking with Marie on their honeymoon.

He rises to attention, and his hand rises with it, thick, strong fingers just about meeting his thumb as they curl around him. He savours that first proper stroke, the shift from teasing to gratification. His mind, already slow and quiet, empties altogether. There is only cool air and warm skin and hot, sticky need.

Bill's rhythm is brisk and rock-steady, but his shaft is tempered by experience. By the time the first wet streams of pre start to leak down over his fingers, the music's stopped, but he's already tuned it out.

Then it hits him, all at once, abrupt but no less potent for it. Bill has to think again, but only for a moment - he knows himself well enough to have a box of tissues ready next to the stereo. A quiet grunt escapes his lips as his balls tighten and the first jet rocks his nervous system.

He has a few minutes to enjoy the afterglow before it starts to fade, and he seizes every second. Then he cleans himself up, finishes his beer, and wanders indoors to answer the sudden growl from his stomach. It's a little early for dinner, but, out here, his body knows best.

***

Tyler

Tyler's straight. 100%, no question. He's shaken off his dad's influence enough not to have a problem with the gays (though not quite enough to stop calling them "the gays"), but he likes women - women's bodies, women's faces, and one specific woman in microeconomics who wears bows in her hair and always smells vaguely of citrus.

And, whenever his roommate's out and he has a spare hour or two, Tyler opens his laptop and watches men fuck each other.

You know. Straight guy stuff.

It started with MMF threesomes. It's simple math, really: Tyler likes fucking, and two guys sharing a girl, that's twice the fucking. The first time his online wandering took him to that kind of threesome, the kind where the guys touch each other, he was caught off-guard, but he kept watching out of what he told himself was academic curiosity. Next it was "straight bait" videos, where women coerced men into having sex with men... and that's how he got here, naked, erect, and browsing hardcore gay porn in bed at eleven o'clock on a Wednesday morning.

The sound's off for his neighbours' sake, leaving only the heavy whir of his laptop fan and the soft, wet slicking of fingers on well-lotioned cock. On his screen, as advertised, a "hot stud", toned and square-shouldered like him, pins a smooth, lithe "tattooed punk" down over a couch, and "roughly rails" him. He's been replaying the same half-minute for a while now, cursor poised to skip back to just the right spot, and stroking in time with the top's rock-steady rhythm.

Twenty minutes ago, in Tyler's head, the citrus-scented girl from micro was challenging him to fuck this sweet little twink, to prove he was strong enough to have her. But she's all but gone now. All he's focused on is two bodies, sharp-edged bodies, male bodies, in harmony.

The camera cuts away from the close-up, and he reaches for the trackpad, then hesitates. He lets it roll. They're changing positions now, the bottom lying on his back, legs up high. They're facing each other. There's hunger in their eyes.

Unbidden, Tyler's stroke quickens.

Normally, he'll pause the video as he cums, flooding his mind with tits and pussies, his reward, his real desire. But this, the heavy, sweaty thing playing out in grainy 480p before him... he can't pretend this isn't a desire in itself, however hard he tries.

The "hot stud" pulls out a few minutes later, shooting thick white spunk all over the "tattooed punk". Tyler follows suit. It'll be a while yet before he's ready for the word "bisexual", but that gluey pool of cum cooling on his stomach is a few months ahead of the curve.

***

Vikram

Vikram's presentation to the board is ten minutes away, and he's not ready.

From a technical standpoint, he's readier than many of his peers have ever been. He's worked late polishing every rough edge on the slide deck, he's practiced his speech in the mirror, he's checked and rechecked and cross-checked his stats from every conceivable angle. But the panic rising in his gut doesn't seem to care about any of that. He's not ready, and he's going to bomb and fail and probably crush any hopes he had for promotion.

In the absence of an official corporate-sanctioned panic room, Vikram's locked himself in a single-occupancy bathroom, where, having tried some breathing exercises to no avail, he's taking the nuclear option.

He's a little startled at how easy it was to get hard, but it makes sense - his whole system is switched on, flooded with adrenaline, the frantic thud of his pulse in his ears now palpable against his palm too. At home, he likes to take his time, savour the moment, but a glance at his smartwatch confirms that he doesn't have that luxury. This one will be quick and dirty.

His favourite fantasy, then. Old reliable. He closes his eyes, tightens his grip, and lets his mind wander back to a familiar place. He's chasing a woman through the woods, a naked, ethereal nymph who's dared him to catch her if he can, and he's gaining on her, until, at last, she throws herself to the ground, wide open, rewarding his victory...

Vikram is a humble man, his pride kept prisoner by his anxiety, but in this one mindspace he can set it free. He can feel his blood quickening, cold fear slowly giving way to hot passion. He breathes as deeply as he can, each breath coinciding with a wave of pleasure as he works his cock with feverish fervour. And, deep down, right there at the base of his shaft, Vikram feels something he doesn't feel very often.

He feels powerful.

He must be powerful, to be able to make himself feel this way. (A little slower for a moment, running his thumb over the tip, gathering silvery pre to ease his stroke.) His mind is disciplined. Potent. It can do anything he directs it to. (Faster now, building momentum, wrist trying to outrun his heartbeat.) There's a reason he was assigned this project. Nobody else could handle it. Nobody but him. He can beat his nerves, he can catch that woman, and he can crush this presentation, because he's Vikram fucking Doshi, and nothing can stop him now!

He staggers back a step as he cums, caught off-guard by the sheer force. The first jet hits the opposite wall with unusual porn-star accuracy, and he readies the tissue a little too late for the second. He'll have to clean up. He might be a couple minutes late.

Don't sweat it, says the endorphin rush. You're worth the wait.

***

Oli

Thursday evenings are Oli's personal Sabbath. He hasn't been to church in years, but, however packed his work schedule gets, however many socials and game nights he gets roped into, he remembers Thursday evening, and he keeps it holy. That time belongs to him and him alone.

Every stage of shutting down is a weight off his mind. Computer, off. Phone, off. Clothes, off. And he eases himself out of his wheelchair and into the cool embrace of a fresh set of sheets, and at last he can let out the breath he didn't realise he was holding.

The vibrator is right where Oli left it, under the bed. It's been charging all day - there should be plenty of playtime in there by now. Perfect.

They offered him an implant to let him get hard again, but he's come to love the way his soft, sensitive cock feels in a well-lubed hand, the wet enveloping warmth of it. He rolls it back and forth, the underside pressing into his curled fingers, eliciting little zings of sensation and little sighs of satisfaction. But this is just the prelude. The main event sits heavy in his other hand, and, with the press of a button, it starts to rumble.

He holds it high for a moment, almost reverently, and then brings it down gently against the slick tip of his cock. A stuttering shiver of bliss runs through him. It's a big, heavy beast of a vibe, and a good deal pricier than his old Hitachi, but that shuddering moment of contact alone is worth every last cent.

Oli drags lube-slick fingertips down over his chest and stomach, leaving glistening trails over his abs - all part of the thrill. He's always enjoyed getting messy, and tonight he can be as much of a mess as he likes.

In time, the vibrator has him writhing against its steady wall of stimulation and leaking like a broken pipe - one more source of that delicious slickness. He gathers it up on his fingers, smears it about, anoints the head of the wand with it. He could surf this sensation for hours, and in the past he's burnt entire evenings on it, playing and pressing until he falls asleep still clutching the vibe.

He doesn't miss ejaculating, not really. Adapting to his new system took him a while, but at times like these, with the patter of the rain and the whir of the motor filling his ears and his body tingling all the way through, he can't help but feel that he's mastered it.

***

Harper

Maybe it took its time kicking in for some reason, some quirk of biology. Maybe it's been lurking for a while and he's just been too busy to notice. Whatever the delay, That One Side Effect, the one everyone warned Harper about when he started on T a few months ago, has arrived with brutal intensity this weekend.

The whole room smells, no, reeks of sex, strong notes of sweat and musk poorly masked by the deodorant he's been spraying half-heartedly between sessions. He wonders if the housemates might start to notice. He wonders if he cares.

He's face-down on his bed, one hand pressed tightly between his hips and a towel-covered pillow. He ruts down into the mattress, rolling his cock - and it is unmistakeably a cock now, a fat, swollen, electric thing he can feel his pulse through - against the heel of his hand over and over again, a single, maddening motion he's mastered over the past couple of days. Even with lube, friction is starting to set in, but the faint soreness doesn't stop him from grinding out another stuttering climax with a low, heavy growl into the sheets.

Harper started counting his orgasms on Saturday morning. He gave up around lunchtime.

His phone lies just out of reach on the nightstand, playing a random Spotify mix he's mostly been drowning out with his own breathing. Reluctantly, he unclasps his legs, rolls over, and checks the time. Then he checks it again, hoping the second reading might be earlier than 1:30am. Surely he can't have burnt the whole weekend.

He'll need to be up early tomorrow to fit a shower in - no way he can show up for work looking and smelling like he does now. He did try earlier, but halfway through he remembered an alternate use for the showerhead, and the original goal was forgotten in a haze of heat and sensation.

"Alarm set for 5 hours and 27 minutes from now." Best not to think too hard about how he'll feel in the morning.

One last rub to send him off, he decides. That can't hurt, right? He's already teasing one finger across his groin before he has time to think about whether this is a good idea. Just one, that's all he needs. He's cresting the wave within minutes, humping his fingers with desperate, pleading need, and decides that maybe a second wouldn't hurt. And maybe a third, third time's the charm.

When Harper next checks his phone, it's 2:45am. He sighs, tosses it halfway across the room, and decides to call in sick in the morning.

***

Shaun

you up?

It's not even midnight yet. Of course Shaun's up.

He pauses True Detective and glares at his phone to unlock it. Annette. Who else? Just as he processes her first text, another comes in.

this is all so stupid

Shaun sighs. On that, at least, he can agree.

The hardest part has been explaining it to his friends. When Annette's lies came to the surface, first the small ones and then the huge ones they were pinning in place, Shaun agreed to keep them to himself, but nobody's buying "it just wasn't working out" as an excuse for the end of a five-year relationship. At least they broke it off before the wedding.

Another buzz, then another, a storm of messages, each landing before he's finished the last.

shaun i still want you

it doesn't have to be like this

come over and let me make it up to you

remember how well we fit together?

He flinches at the attachment. He told her to delete that album.

She tries this at least once a week now. Hoping to make amends, or perhaps just to screw with him - but he has a feeling that, for once in her life, she's telling the truth. She wants him back.

And he wants her. He wants her badly enough to have fallen for this twice already, each night ending with regret, recriminations, and Shaun catching the first morning bus home. His head remembers that; his body does not, and he spits a curse down at his crotch as his pyjama bottoms start to tent.

shaun i need you on top of me again

Maybe that's why he let his suspicions slide for so long. She had him by the cock. She still fucking does, he realises, fingers curling around his shaft almost reflexively. She did such wicked things to him...

i can't stop thinking about it

Nor can Shaun. He's manhandling his cock now, under the soft flannel, harsh, almost cruel jerks, reprimanding himself for caving to his desires. This is the part where he types "20 min" back, throws on a T-shirt, and runs to catch the night bus, like the poor predictable fool that he is.

But instead, he bites his lip, grits his teeth, and lets himself fall deeper into memory. He drops his phone to the floor, ignoring the message chirps, focusing fully downward. She was magnificent. They were magnificent. Were. Were.

Not any more.

The first tear and the first glob of semen fall as one.

Vision blurred, body buzzing, he glances back at his phone. 13 new messages. He doesn't even read them before typing his own, tapping send, and switching to do not disturb.

Goodnight, Annette.

***

Arlo

After a good fifteen minutes getting his webcam and desk lamp in harmony, Arlo can finally settle back into a chair he spent too much on, pull off his shirt and sweatpants, and wait for the call. On the dot of eleven, it comes.

Even fresh out of bed, hair in disarray, rubbing the grit from her eyes, Lydia looks radiant. The morning sun flatters her - as Arlo's day winds down in Vancouver, Lydia's is just starting in Edinburgh.

"Morning, babe."

Lydia gives him a sleepy smirk which he still, even now, feels deep in his chest. "Evening, arsehole."

They talk for a little while, partly for genuine love of it and partly to give Lydia space to wake up properly. Eventually she asks, "How are you holding up?"

Arlo shrugs, pretending to miss the subtext. "About as well as anyone can on this bitch of an Earth."

Lydia tuts. "You know what I mean. How are you feeling?"

He calls it The Voice, a certain register that triggers all his "kneel and obey" impulses with embarrassing efficiency. When he speaks again, his own voice has changed too, quieter, more cautious. "It's been difficult, ma'am..." he begins.

"Good," Lydia intones. "And you haven't broken, have you? It would be such a shame if you'd broken..."

Arlo shakes his head emphatically. "No, ma'am. Though I've come close."

She laughs, flashing teeth for a moment. "Not close enough. Stroke for me."

"Now, ma'am?"

"Now."

Dutifully, Arlo angles the webcam down to take in the smooth, shiny tip of his cock, already aching hard from anticipation. He leans back and takes himself in both hands - right around the shaft, left cupping his balls, just like she taught him. He never used to think of himself as an exhibitionist, but Lydia has taught him the thrill of putting on a show for her.

"Good boy," she says, utterly composed, with just the barest hint of warmth bleeding through the veneer. "Do you want to cum for me?"

"Yes," Arlo pants. "Yes, ma'am. More than anything, ma'am."

She makes him wait a little longer, pushes him to drag himself closer to the precipice. "You want to please me, boy?"

This time he can only nod. He has a feeling he knows what's coming, but a hope persists. Still, he slows to a crawl - he's so sensitive now that anything faster will tip him over.

"It would please me if you worked a little harder on your restraint," says Lydia, lips curled in schadenfreude. "That's enough for tonight."

With a breathy whine, Arlo lets go, cock twitching angrily, silvery pre trailing down his shaft. "Yes, ma'am," he groans.

"Good boy," says Lydia, and this time she lets the warmth out fully. "I do love how well you behave for me."

Arlo shifts the camera back up to show his face fully. "Thank you so much."

Lydia's breaking character now, back to her usual self. "Thank you. Great way to wake up. But I don't want to keep you..."

Much as he could stay up talking to her all night, Arlo's eyes are heavy. "Goodnight, babe."

"Goodnight, arsehole," Lydia smiles.

There's still tension between Arlo's thighs as he settles down for the night, but the words "good boy" rebounding around his brain sate him better than any orgasm could.