The Orange (A Fetish Fable)

So I got creative and, using a bit of ingenuity, typed, "male models with long hair shirtless". Cute guys with their bellybuttons showing filled the screen. My raging erection got stronger like a geiger counter detecting radioactivity.

I spent the next hour clicking on image after image, right-clicking on each because I wanted to save them off for later -- and because I was afraid I'd forget where I saw an image, and might never see it again.

I visited photo-sharing sites. Modeling agency sites. Swimwear sites. Anything I could think of. And I felt the erotic energy building up and building up -- this was amazing to me, but still a huge mystery.

As a change-up, I clicked over to the general text entries and saw a link to a place where people were having what was clearly an online discussion.

About bellybuttons. About guys' bellybuttons. Not about chicks in bikinis. This appeared to be my kind of group, maybe my proverbial tribe.

I couldn't believe my eyes. I began to read entry after entry. Yes, these guys on this page were horny when a bared stomach was showing. But even though these guys loved seeing navels in the air, some of them had slightly different taste than I did. Some liked it when a guy's bellybutton was pressed down horizontally so it looked like it was being crushed. Some liked guys' outies; others couldn't stand them.

I surfed around and found other sites discussing many things about bellybuttons. Are they sexy?, one page asked. Yes they are, another site said, and here's why. They do nothing for me, another page said. Several said they hated guys in crop tops -- too "faggoty", too effeminate, too gay. Others couldn't get enough. The crop top debate pages never really dealt with bellybuttons, in a sense -- they dealt with piercings, tattoos, and the general concept of masculinity.

This struck me as strange. Both guys and gals have bellybuttons. Why is it that if chicks show theirs in such an attention-grabbing way, that's cool, but if a guy does it, he's a fag?

I didn't care. I loved them. Back to the images. Searched on "male half shirt 80s". More hot images. Nice. I was on a roll.

Two hours later, I finally decided to hit the sack. Switched off all the lights except the one on my nightstand. Ran through all the images in my head, of my favorite bellybuttons, one at a time, so far since sucking down that weird navel orange. Thought of the ones I'd seen on guys in the street previously. I masturbated furiously but took my time this time, luxuriating my mind with the gorgeous ovals I'd witnessed.

When I came, a fat glob landed on my stomach. A second hit my chin. And a third hit the headboard behind me and began running down, slowly.

What was in that orange?, I thought, as I drifted off to sleep, semen coagulating on my penis.

TWO

I'd known Jared for, perhaps, five or so years. Jared was a little bit wild. He was also gay, but younger than me by several years. I asked what his sign was once -- he said he's a Cancer. Cancer -- ruled by the moon, where the expression "loony" came from.

That made sense to me. Jared was good-looking enough to have been in several relationships. He had sweet eyes, a pretty smile, and a touch of shyness -- all trademarks of the sweet guys Cancers are on the surface. When you spoke directly to him and looked him in the eyes, he'd look back, but you could tell it was a tiny bit of a push for him to keep contact. But his smile was always warm.

I saw him at a coffee place every other week or so, in a divey part of town. It was, in fact, called "The Dive." It had an open-air patio. Smokers. Edgy. Distinctly non-commercial music playing on the sound system.

On one particular evening, I made sure to get a table out on the patio, where it wasn't as well lit, so I could have some privacy. Although I was enjoying my new-found fetish to death, I wasn't sure I wanted my interest to get airborne, and if it did, I wanted as little damage socially as possible, even from eavesdroppers.

Jared was pretty horny these days. But Jared was more of a classic gay male -- into males with huge pecs, shredded abs, and a schlong as big as a Polish sausage. He was unapologetic about what he liked and although he was rumored to be on the kinky side behind closed doors, he was pretty vanilla.

He spotted me at the back of the patio, nodded a hello, and walked over to join me. We chatted about the usual stuff we talk about -- how screwed up the world is, the injustices man commits to mankind daily, and what funny videos we saw on YouTube.

So, after maybe 20 minutes of the typical chat, I decided to get on risky ground.

"So, um..." I began, "Fetishes."

"Fetishes?" Jared asked.

"Yeah, fetishes. You know I mean by that, right?"

"I think so, but what do you mean?"

I explained to him that a sexual fetish is where you have this "thing" for a certain body part and you come way harder when you can see it, or if you look at it, or experience it somehow.

"Oh, you mean like nips," Jared asked. Jared liked nipples. Of course, nipples on a big set of pecs is nothing new to gay males, especially for anyone who's ever seen gay smut video.

"Well, no," I said, a bit hesitantly. "I mean, like, other body parts. Like, parts that aren't sex organs or sexual."

"You mean like feet?" Jared guessed. He'd heard of foot fetishes -- that's one of the biggest ones around, he explained.

"Well, not like a foot fetish," I stammered a bit, trying to explain myself. "What if it was, like, a body part near the abs but not the abs?"

Jared considered that for a moment and scrunched up his face and shrugged in confusion. He had no clue what my subtlety was hinting...at first. Then his face lit up with an idea, his eyebrows rising.

"You like bellybuttons?" Jared asked, half declaration, half guess. Hearing the word made my cock spring hard again -- man, I loved that word. Hearing it from a cute guy makes me want to hear it again and again.

"Yeah...bellybuttons," I answered cautiously and a bit quietly. "I love looking at cute guys with their bellybuttons showing."

"Bellybuttons," Jared tried out the concept for size again in his mind, looking into the air at nothing in particular. "Hadn't thought of that. Makes some sense, though. It's right there on the stomach in plain sight."

Jared slowly pulled his shirt up to look at his own. Naturally, I watched with bated breath, enraptured. Jared had an oval innie, a decent sized one, about a quarter in size.

"Yours is pretty hot," I said.

Jared looked at me for a moment, smiled, then shrugged and let his shirt drop. "That's interesting," he said. "I think you're the first guy who's ever told me he has a thing for bellybuttons -- without piercings."

I sat for perhaps a half-minute, now concerned.

"Do you think I'm a freak?" I asked him, point-blank.

"Oh, no, not even close," Jared reassured me, patting my forearm furtively. "There's lots of other stuff out there, way out there. I guess I just can't say I've ever gotten hard from looking only at a guy's navel. Now, if it's filled with spooge, that's a different story."

"That's about the spooge and the cock," I explained.

Both of us sat in thought for a few moments.

"How is it that I -- that anyone -- could wind up with a bellybutton fetish when there are literally millions of others who can look at it and feel nothing? Like you," I asked.

"I think if I had the answer to that, I'd be a billionaire, because I'd have one of the biggest secrets of the human mind -- what drives sexual response," Jared concluded, then looked at me with a pause. "So are you gonna do anything about it?"

"I don't know if I should do anything about it. I don't even want to tell you how it happened, it was so strange. It feels...it feels amazing, Jared...it's just that...I'm kinda alone on this. I wanna find a partner, like, out in the streets or bars."

"I hope you find him," Jared said thoughtfully. "Now I wish I could get off on bellybuttons with you. More ways for me to come."

And he smiled his warm, friendly smile again.

THREE

Zack was a little bit of a different story. We've known each other for several years. Zack was a shift manager at another local coffee nook. Platinum blond hair, sometimes spiky, sometimes relaxed, he sported a pair of thick-rimmed, black glasses, with lenses that fronted lovely bluish gray eyes.

In his early 20's, Zack was still figuring out who he was. He was responsible -- came from a decent home, wanted to do well, to be good to people. He was a Virgo by birth -- Virgos are often neurotic but well-meaning folks. His folks were right-leaning Baptists but they weren't militant about it. Still, their psyche had cast a long shadow across Zack's mind.

And yet, Zack had a desire to be a bit wild -- in a controlled, buttoned-down way. He and I would talk about lots of things in the Real World -- getting hammered, dating, pipe dreams, lots of stuff.

We developed a relationship to the point that we'd get together about two or three times a month. Usually Zack came over to my place because -- being a barista -- he wasn't making enough for a pad of his own, so he had two or three roommates and no privacy. And I could tell Zack liked me -- I was a cool guy in his eyes. I had my own place, I didn't seem to have to answer to anyone. I could come and go as I pleased without being asked where I was headed. Zack wanted that independence, that freedom.

Zack had never talked with me about a girlfriend. He might mention some starlet was pretty, or some model was cute, but that was about it. And yet, once in a great while, I thought I caught Zack eyeing a guy -- some hottie that I liked, myself, for his looks -- or for some kind of oozing sexual appeal. But I never challenged him on it or ambushed him. It was important to me that he felt safe with me.

So he was over at my place one afternoon. The weather had cooled down quite a bit; it wasn't the blistering Gulf Coast summer anymore. No need to run the AC, just a fan to move the air around. It was just the sound of the two of us talking. At one point there was a meaningful pause. Zack wanted to say something but was a bit uneasy about it. I knew something was up with him.

"So, like, what kind of body parts do you like?" Zack ventured, not looking at me, then looking at me indirectly, then looking away again.

"Hmmm?"

"I mean, like, is there something that you like looking at more than...something else," Zack ventured.

Zack knew that I was gay, and that I didn't judge. It didn't particularly bother him that I was gay, but yet I sensed he felt...something. He seemed to want to probe me a bit.

"Well..." I started, "I'm always a sucker for a handsome face, a kind face, y'know?" Might as well go for safe before running across landmines barefoot.

"That's...cool," Zack responded, slowly. "I wanna be nice looking."

"You are nice-looking," I replied, softly.

"Really?" Zack perked up a little. Then he let his head sink a bit in that aw-shucks kind of posture.

"Oh, yeah," I added. "Doesn't anyone ever tell you?"

"Well...no," Zack said. "I sometimes wish someone would."

"Well," I pronounced with a bit of mock grandeur, "I think you're quite a hot guy, Zack."

Zack looked me dead in the eyes, part delight, part anxiety. He wasn't smiling.

"So, like, body parts..." Zack reminded me.

"Oh, oh, oh, yeah," I continued. "So, yeah, nice face, nice hair, someone who looks approachable, kind, all that. I don't do muscle men or bad boys."

Zack sat motionless. It was like he was waiting for something, something specific.

I looked at him closely, but not with a penetrating stare. I started softly.

"Ummm....can you keep a secret? If so, I'd like to tell you something I don't tell most people."

"Um, yeah," Zack responded, almost in a whisper but still audible.

"Well..." I began, taking a bit of a deeper breath as I started, "Let's just say that some guys develop differently than others. Sexually, I mean. I mean, every guy is different and we get turned on by different things. Lots of guys are into boobs -- big boobs, small boobs, whatever."

"Okay..."

"And some guys like big muscles -- you know, like the bodybuilders? I never was turned on by those. I like guys who are...more average, more real looking."

"Yeah..." I had Zack's completely undivided attention.

"Well, years ago when I was ... developing, shall we say ... I found out that I'm into a body part that no other gay guys seem to be into..."

Zack cocked his head slightly, running through the possibilities in his mind. I figured I had to set it up carefully or Zack might run embarrassed from my place and never speak to me again.

And then -- almost as if it were deemed by fate -- Zack, perhaps tired of my throat-clearing, sat up, arched his back, and stretched, causing his shirt to rise.

There, in the middle of his abdomen, was a perfectly oval-shaped innie bellybutton, adorning a nice, flat, undeveloped stomach.

Zack had his head back, mid-stretch. So I decided to get a little cheeky, and reached out my index and middle finger and grazed the deep part of his navel.

He recoiled quickly, and for a split second I thought I'd blown, well, everything.

"That felt...hot," he finally said, slowly.

He slowly pulled up his shirt again, looking at his bellybutton, which he was now trying to imagine as a physical pleasure center. I was mesmerized, of course, looking and getting harder by the moment, enjoying the now raging erection that has sprung inside my khakis. Then came Zack's steady pronouncement.

"You like my bellybutton. You like bellybuttons. You have a sex thing for bellybuttons."

A few seconds. I spoke.

"Yeah. I do. I really, really do. I always have."

Again, the locked eyes from him on me. He slid a little closer to me now. I breathed in anticipation.

His eyes were speaking to me now. Zack stopped talking. There was still a bit of anxiety -- he seemed to twitch about every few seconds as if someone was going to see him. His eyes were saying, "Touch it again. That was really hot."

So, cautiously, I again extended my hand and softly began to caress this gorgeous, warm, large, oval navel. He moaned softly, but I could almost hear his mind struggling to make sense of it.

"I can stop..." I advised.

Zack shook his head vigorously. This was an awakening for him, too, it seemed. He continued to hold my hand against the vertical folds of the dip in his stomach.

We slowly rose, together, and went to my bedroom -- I gently took him by the hand -- and he lay back down on the bed, stomach up. He had pulled up his shirt so his bellybutton was showing again, and since he was laying down it was even a bit more elongated than it was before. This time I was the one who let loose a brief moan. Seeing this beautiful blond guy who was just a bit neurotic, with his navel showing, and inviting me to play with it, was one of the best things that had ever happened to me.

I let my entire hand graze his bellybutton area, allowing myself to finger the deepest part of his navel, pushing down, applying some pressure inside it, but not pushing too hard. I made fluttery, tracing circles around it. I blew little loving kisses on it. I loved listening to his breathing in that quiet, quiet room.

I started fingering his bellybutton like I was masturbating it. Like I could make him come from manipulating it.

He reached down, undid his belt, unzipped his pants, and pulled them down. His penis was clearly hard -- and long and surprisingly thick, too -- through his white briefs.

I rubbed his bellybutton some more, enjoying its shape, contour, and milky white stomach surrounding it -- no zits, no blemishes, no ridges, no muscles -- just a surface as smooth as a scoop of vanilla soft-serve ice cream.

He reached down again, pulling down the briefs, causing his boner to pop out, dangling. A slight bit of precum had formed on the tip.

I continued masturbating his bellybutton. I was enjoying it totally. He breathed harder and harder as I played with it. In my mind, I fancied myself an interrogator, trying to make him come if he "wouldn't talk." The video recorder of my mind was in a hypnotic state. I could not have imagined I would have this situation, ever. I, too, was needing to come.

But I would not be first. With a series of slightly accelerated strokes of my index finger, slowly and sensually through his oval innie, he moaned louder and louder, and then...he came -- forcefully.

A first big glob of thick, warm, opaque semen erupted from his penis tip, hitting him in the face and glazing his glasses. A second shot passed the top of his head and audibly hit my headboard, causing a glob of semen to start slowing running down the faux wood panel. A third, with another grunt from him, hit his hair, making an instantly sticky mess and his blond strands moistened with cum.

The next few globs hit his chest and grazed one of his nipples, which were clearly pert and erect. I had not touched his penis at all. He was getting off with my fingering his navel.

His last few eruptions landed right in his bellybutton, filling it up more with each blast, and hitting my fingers with warm, slippery fluid. His very last one filled his bellybutton so much that it ran down the side of his stomach.

With that sublime vision, I felt something in my pants also. I began to feel spasms of semen as I came in my pants, darkening my crotch area with hot moisture. I moaned also, breathed, and continued to finger Zack's filled-up and very wet bellybutton. Both of us were moaning.

And then he exhaled.

He raised his head from his reclined position and looked carefully at his cum-covered bellybutton. Then he looked at me -- those eyes -- again.

The faintest bit of a smile crept across his lips. Again, a couple of twitchy looks over his shoulder at an imaginary oppressor.

He leaned over -- causing cum to run down his stomach and onto my bedspread -- and gave me the sweetest, most awkward, most sensual kiss on the lips I had ever experienced. I almost came a second time when he kissed me.

"I like bellybuttons, too," he whispered.

I smiled. I extended my arms to invite a hug, which he effortlessly fell into. And he rested his kinky blond haired, skinny, partially naked body on mine, his glasses stained with coagulating semen. I held him in that hug for what was an hour. But for me, it seemed like a full day. And it felt so intimate, so warm, so good. I might have gotten what I wanted in those moments, but so did Zack.

Zack got liberation.

FOUR

Still struck by what had happened recently, I was in an odd mental state. I loved it, of course. Any guy stretching until his shirt rode up, or any guy in a midriff-baring half-shirt sent me into the stratosphere with desire.

A swimming and diving competition was broadcast in HD, and I recorded it to my computer's hard drive. Playing it back was rapturous -- lots of guys in skinny briefs with their navels showing. One of my favorites was a diver from north of the border. Perched at the end of the diving board, facing backwards and the camera, the lens zoomed in slowly to pick up his concentration, but stopped with a full view of his upper body. His bellybutton was an oval innie, probably about an inch and a half tall. More stroke material.

And yet, I began to wonder -- why wasn't anyone else seeing what I was seeing? I mean, gay guys are all about beauty, physical attractiveness, and what not, but it was all subjective. Some guys like the big, muscle-bound types, others like the waif-like skinny ones.