Push and Pull

PART 1

Darren's eyes didn't leave the black-and-white print on the page. The night was calm. He didn't turn on the TV or listen to music from his computer or from a CD. The floor fan turned gently in the corner. The air conditioner put out a whisper of cool air.

If this were a different night, Darren might have been tempted to reach for the remote control and tune into the TV. He could be watching some crime drama or sitcom, flipping through the channels until he found something he liked. Sometimes his wife would join him, sitting next to him on their big sofa, with their feet up on the coffee table and their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders.

He might watch sports on TV. He played football in high school; didn't quite make it to the college level. But he never stopped following his favorite sport, watching all of the NFL games he could. While they didn't call him "Darren Touchdown" in high school, he sometimes told people that they did. It was a joke, but it was still true.

In the autumn, he might have been looking forward to the football season, which was just a few months away. In the spring, he probably would have been planning a road trip to one of the big-name sporting events around the country. Football? Baseball? It didn't matter. He had a decent job with a decent salary. He could afford it.

But tonight, Darren was stuck inside. He was also a husband. And a father. And a Catholic.

Tonight, his wife and daughters were out of town. They were on a trip to visit friends in another state. He had been looking forward to the time alone, the opportunity to get a lot of things done around the house. In fact, he was looking forward to it more than he should have been.

But there was no crime drama or sitcom on tonight. And there wasn't any big game either. It was just him and his book.

Darren had not always been a reader. In fact, he hadn't really been of the opinion that reading was a good use of his time. He was on the "too busy" list. As a kid, he was on the "too stupid" list. He was on the "too distracted" list. He was on the "can't hold a candle to Timmy" list. His parents had told him the same thing: he'd never amount to anything.

That's why, when he was about fourteen or fifteen, he started football. It was the only thing he was good at. He may not have been the smartest kid in school, but on the field he could outrun and out-stand the competition. He was the team's kicker. He was the team's punter. He was the team's field general. And he was the team's hero.

Darren had good grades in high school, but still not as good as many of his classmates. When he went to college, he majored in physical education, with an eye toward becoming a gym teacher. That was his backup plan, anyway.

After graduation, he got a job as a physical education teacher. But he also got a second job as a substitute gym teacher at a local Christian school. When a permanent position opened up at the school, he jumped at the opportunity. He needed the extra pay. He needed the job security. The job at the Christian school didn't pay as well. But it was easier to get...

He taught physical education at the school for several years. He was popular with the students, who enjoyed his rough-around-the-edges personality. He played the part of the bad ass. He was also popular with the school's female faculty, who enjoyed his piercing blue eyes and black, black hair. Darren's hair was black as the night sky. It shone like a raven's wings. Back then he wore it long, down to his shoulders. Nowadays he kept it close-cropped. He was no longer a bad boy, after all. He was a good Catholic husband and father.

Darren's wife was named Mary. Mary was Catholic, but her entire family had been Catholic for generations. Darren had always been an atheist, but he had always agreed that he would raise their children Catholic. He made this promise to Mary when they were dating. They were senior year of college sweethearts. They were married when they were twenty-four. They had their daughters four years later.

When the girls were brought up for baptism, Darren walked ahead of them, following the priest. Mary held the girls' hands, following Darren. Darren was not religious, but he knew how to participate in a Catholic service. When the priest uttered his prayer, Darren closed his eyes, crossed himself, and said the prayer along with him.

Darren had never told Mary about his teenage years, his alcohol-soaked teen years. To Mary, Darren was a good Catholic husband and father.

---

PART 2

Darren's eyes flashed back and forth between lines of text on the page. The sun had long since set outside. The air conditioner had long since exhaled its last breath. Darren was still reading. He didn't make much noise. The only thing you could hear was the occasional snap of his fingers, as he turned the pages of his book. The pages smelled of paper, fresh from the printing press.

He was reading a novel that depicted gay men in an unflattering light. The author was known for his work that did just that. Darren was reading it to get a sense of how and why and when and where; to get a sense of what it was like to be a man who was attracted to other men. The author was known for his books that documented the inner workings of the gay and lesbian community. This was not for his enjoyment. It was for research. Darren couldn't tell you which book this was. He'd read three books by the same author, all of them aimed at highlighting what was wrong with gay men. This book was three inches thick, and had a crease down the middle. The cover was a faded pink. It was a hardcover.

Darren actually started to enjoy it. He wasn't enjoying the plot so much as he was enjoying how he felt when he was reading it. The author was clearly trying to make the book as offensive as possible, but it felt like a challenge to Darren. He felt like he was supposed to feel bad about what he was reading... and yet he didn't. It felt like a challenge: can I make this book interesting? I'm not enjoying it. I'm not enjoying this. But I am enjoying the challenge.

Something else happened, too:

Darren started to get hard. Damn it. His cock pressed against the zipper of his pants. He was starting to get aroused, and he didn't like it. He didn't like that at all.

His cock filled with blood. He felt it push outward.

The more he read, the more he got turned on.

He looked down at the book, not at the words, just at the black and white images. Images of men fucking other men stared back at him. The art style was crude, and the men were ugly and fat and hairy and short. That made it even harder for him to look away.

His cock began to ooze pre-cum. It felt like warm butter was leaking out of him. It slid down his shaft, down past his balls.

He felt his ass pucker. He felt his balls tighten up.

He shut the book and threw it against the wall. The loud sound startled him and he looked around the room, as if someone had caught him. No one had. He was alone. He was home alone.

The book lay on the carpeted floor, its pages splayed out in all four directions, like the legs of a dead bird.

---

PART 3

Darren tossed and turned in bed. He didn't know why he couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the guilt that he kept feeling. The guilt was all in his head. It wasn't enough to stop him from reading the book. It wasn't the book's fault that Darren was enjoying it so much.

He thought about an image of an obese man, straddling another man, his chubby face contorted in pleasure, his fingers digging deep into the flesh of the man beneath him. He remembered another image, of two men in a wrestling match, their hard cocks barely concealed by their underwear, their hands sliding up and down their shafts, their eyes closed in ecstasy.

There were images of orgies, one in a gymnasium, one in a locker room. Images of a man being blown by a dozen or more men, all at once. In every image, the men were big and hairy and fat. In every image, the men were having a lot of fun. In every image, Darren wanted to be one of the men being blown, being fucked, being held down.

In every image, Darren saw himself. He saw himself in the book. He saw himself in the art.

His cock was in a state of perpetual arousal. He was hard in a way that he hadn't been in years.

He thought back to when he was in college, when he was in shape, when he had a six pack and strong pecs and a big ol' cock. And a barbell in his nipple, back then. He'd gotten that in his sophomore year in college. He was wild in college.

He remembered the sting of the needle in his nipple, and the pain of the barbell, and the way it felt when he was in the shower and the water hit the barbell and he felt like the pain was like a million splinters in his skin, like a million jagged little knives, like a million little explosions of white-hot pain in his nipple. The way it humped out of his nipple like a tiny, metal mountain.

He remembered the way he had felt during those days, before Mary, before the girls. Before he got married. Before he grew up. Before the responsibilities. Before he became ordinary. Before he became boring.

Darren didn't know why he was thinking about this stuff. It just kept coming back to him. It kept coming back to him. He felt like he was stuck in the past.

The more he thought about it, the more he remembered.

He remembered the way the men at the gym stared at him, their eyes following his chiseled body, his strong arms, his strong back, his strong legs. It made him feel so good to know that so many men were looking at him, so many men were staring at him. He loved it. Sometime during his workout, he would start to imagine that he was holding court with all the men in the room, with all the men who were staring at him. He imagined that he was like a ruler among his subjects, like the man who owned the gym, like the man who owned all of them. It made him feel like a king. It made him feel like a god. Nowadays, he felt like a small and broken man.

Exercise was how he had been able to keep his figure, at least. Rowing. Cycling. Running. It was hard work, but he thought it was worth it. He could still look at himself in the mirror. An old, ratty mirror that he kept in the basement, that his mother had given him. One day, a few years back, he had slipped on a puddle in the basement and fell hard, and the mirror had smashed right over his head. He had a huge gash in his forehead. It took a few stitches to close it up. He thought it made him look more rugged, maybe a little bit dangerous. A black crow with a white feather in the middle of its head. That was Darren, in his own way.

God, where did all this stuff come from? Where did it come from, why was he thinking about this stuff, why did it keep coming back to him?

There was a knock on the front door. It startled him, and he sat bolt upright in bed, his hands sweaty. In the middle of the night?

"Darren?" came a voice from the other side of the door. It was a voice Darren knew, a voice he hadn't heard in years.

"Oh my god," said Darren into the darkness.

---

PART 4

He opened the door. He saw his old friend. His old friend was a few years younger than him, and he still looked the same, except his hair was much shorter. He had a beard and a mustache. He was wearing a shirt with an anarchist symbol.

"Mark?" said Darren.

"Darren?" said Mark.

They stood there in the doorway, in the middle of the night. The living room was dark. Darren was wearing his underwear and an old, ratty t-shirt. His boxer-briefs were black and yellow striped, like a bumblebee, and the shirt was soft and thin.

"The fuck are you doing here?" said Darren.

"Darren, it's been too long," said Mark. "Oh man, it's been too long." He embraced Darren. Darren hugged him back.

"It's been too long," said Darren.

"I know," said Mark.

They went to the kitchen. Mark sat at the table. He picked up one of the magazines. He saw the cover, the muscular man on the cover, and then he saw the title.

"Darren," he said. "Is this gay shit?"

"Is it?" said Darren, defensively.

"Darren," said Mark.

"Don't," said Darren. "Don't say anything."

"You crazy motherfucker," said Mark.

"Mark, I know what it looks like," said Darren. "Please don't make a big deal out of this. I'm not..."

"You're not what?" said Mark. "You're not queer? You're not gay? You're not bi?"

"I'm not," said Darren.

"Bullshit," said Mark.

Darren looked at him. He looked at the magazines, stacked up on the table. The cover of the third one showed a group of naked men in a wrestling match, their bodies covered in sweat, their cocks hard and long. He turned the magazine over. He saw it on the back, on the spine. The word, "Gay".

Darren tried to abruptly change the subject. "What are you doing here, man? In the middle of the night?" He got himself a beer out of the fridge. He opened it. He took a big swig of it.

"I'm here to see you, man," said Mark. "I know it's been a long time. I've thought about you, you know."

"Yeah, me too," said Darren.

"I've missed you, I've missed you a lot," said Mark. Darren didn't say anything. He was looking down. He was staring at the floor. "I know, I know, it's been a long time. But it looks like you haven't changed one bit."

"I haven't," said Darren.

"But you are..."

"What?" said Darren.

Mark looked around the room. It was dark. He looked at all the magazines. Mi Amor. Unzipped. Gay Times. The magazines were hypnotic, a flurry of contorting penises, a languid striptease, a writhing cascade of sweat and skin. Gooey, sticky cum.

"You're gay now, right?" said Mark.

"Am I?" said Darren.

"Darren, look at yourself. You're wearing gay underwear, you read gay magazines. You have gay porn on your desk. Unzipped? Mi Amor? Gay Times? Gay magazines. That's gay, dude. That's all gay."

"It's just for, uh, for research," said Darren.

"For research?" said Mark.

"Yeah."

"And what are you researching?" Mark was smiling.

"I'm...trying to understand the gay lifestyle," said Darren.

Wet foam from the beer had dribbled down his top lip. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. He wiped the beer from his lips. He was nervous. Idiot. He was an idiot.

Without saying anything, Mark reached out and picked up one of the magazines. He opened it. He leafed through it. It showed a number of muscular men in different stages of undress. Some were partially nude, others totally naked, others were masturbating. "You look like you're doing pretty well with your research," said Mark.

Darren smiled. "It's...it's interesting stuff," he said. "I don't even know what to say."

"Heh heh," said Mark. He opened the magazine to a centerfold. An athlete was on his knees, on the floor, on the cover of the magazine. He was holding his enormous cock in his hand, rubbing it. His balls hung low, big and swollen. He had a huge body, rippling with muscles, his cock standing tall, his skin oily with sweat. His face was twisted in agony. Lust. Excess.

"What do you think?" said Darren.

"It's cool," said Mark. He thumbed through the magazine, looking at the pictures. "Yeah. It's a nice cock."

Twelve inches. It was twelve inches.

"He's hung," said Mark.

"I know," said Darren.

"Maybe it's a little big," said Mark, looking at it. "If you know what I mean."

Moisture was leaking from the head of Darren's cock. It was escaping from his boxer-briefs, a moist stain showing through the fabric. He shifted a little. He was achingly hard.

"I mean, it's nice," said Mark. "But it's not realistic. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," said Darren.

"I mean, I'm average," said Mark. "I'm not saying I'm, like, huge. I'm not huge. But I ain't small. I'm not small at all. And I'm with women all the time. Ha ha. And they like, they like me. I think they like me. I'm not bragging or nothing. I'm not bragging. I'm just saying. I'm just trying to be honest."

Spit was running from the side of Darren's mouth. It was running down his chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. He wiped it away. He was sweating.

"Heh," said Mark. "When I was with Sylvia, she always told me that I was the biggest she'd ever had. I was always amazed by it. I didn't even know if I believed her. But...she said it. And I believed her. The size of your cock is important, and what's important is the size of the head, man. The head. Because the head is what you use to get in there. I mean, yeah, I guess it's the whole thing. The whole thing. Heh heh. You know what I mean?"

Nostrils flaring, Darren's eyes were wide. He was listening to Mark talk.

"Yeah," said Mark. "Now I'm in a place with, you know, just me and Genevieve. And I don't know. Maybe I should just look again."

"What do you mean?" said Darren.

"You know," said Mark. "Maybe I should just look again. Or maybe I'll find someone else. Maybe I'll find...other things."

I want to fuck you, Darren thought.

"You know what I mean," said Mark.

He moved closer to Darren. His musk was overpowering. Darren felt like he was drowning in it. Sweat ran down his chin, down his neck. He couldn't take his eyes off of the floor. The grainy hardwood. The floor.

"Heh heh," said Mark. "Listen to me, talking about my cock. Heh heh. I'm not even gay, man. I'm just telling you. I'm just telling you. I'm just being honest." Mark was standing right above Darren. "I just want you to know that. All I'm saying is...you know...I'm open to...variations, you know. I'm open."

Darren's cock was completely hard now. The head was pushing against the fabric of his boxer-briefs. He was sweating hard. He was drooling.

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Mark looked at Darren. "I mean, look at me," he said. "I'm a good guy."

Darren felt a hand on his shoulder. He felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back.

"A good guy," said Mark. "Heh heh."

Tension ran through Darren's body. He was ready, ready, ready. Any minute.

"Yeah," said Mark. "I'm a good guy. And I'm here for you. You can call me anytime. You can call me. So. Let me know if you ever want to talk again. Let me know. I'm here. I'm open."

Nostrils flaring, Darren sat on the sofa. His muscles tensed.

"I'm open, man," said Mark. "I'm open."

Mark walked towards the door. He let himself out.

Darren was alone. As the strangeness of the midnight encounter faded, he was alone again in the house. He fell asleep.

---

PART 4

Mary and the girls came home several days later, but it seemed as if Mary was a different person. She was pale, her hair was disheveled, and black rings were under her eyes. The house seemed oppressively quiet. Mary rarely spoke at all. Roxy and Nina, Darren's daughters, were a bit quieter, a bit more subdued, too. Darren didn't know what to make of it.

The next week, Mary began to purge. She threw out all of the food in the refrigerator, then threw out all of the food in the pantry. She threw out all of the food in the cupboards. There was nothing to eat.

"All of it," said Mary. "Throw it all out. All of it."

Darren threw it all out.

Over the course of the following weeks, more and more of Mary's belongings would be piled into a box at the end of the driveway. One of the neighbors bought the car that Darren had bought for her. Mary began to talk more. She began to tell Darren more.

"Things have been bad," she said one day. "I've been so depressed. I've been so sad."

Mornings found Darren in a cold sweat. The sheets were tangled around his legs. He knew he'd been dreaming again, but he couldn't tell what it had been about. He reached under the bed. His cock was still hard. He stroked it while he was still in bed. Five minutes later, he felt the rush of cum fill his hand.

He rolled over, looked at his wife. He was still hard. He was stiffening again.