#jockedguystories

[jockedguy]

These Bros Walked Into the Bar

I saw these bros walk into the bar.

It’s not a joke — it actually happened. These three bros strutted into my bar on a Wednesday afternoon, and one of them didn’t even have a shirt on, in clear violation of the NO SHIRT NO SHOES NO SERVICE policy posted clearly on the front door.

“Uh,” I said, as they sat down, but I couldn’t get out the words. It was too much, and I couldn’t stop looking at them. It was like something you see on the internet, on Reddit, maybe, on a thread of “Do you even bro, bro?”

One of them, the spiky blond-haired dude, wasn’t even paying attention to what was going on. He seemed like he was way more into his own reflection, even in the tinted window that they sat down next to. The other two didn’t even bother with the menu, and slurped down the ice water that I brought them.

It’s not that I’m an anxious guy. I guess if I had to characterize myself, I’d say I’m just terminally nervous. I’m always imagining what’s going to happen next, rather than living in the moment, and I’m aware that it’s a fault of mine. It’s something that’s always sort of stuck with me, ever since I was a kid. Maybe it’s stunted my growth as a person, I don’t know, but I’ve managed to sort of wrangle it into an endearing character trait that twins along nicely with my above-average intelligence.

It doesn’t help that I’m gay, either, and to make matters even worse, the kind of guy I’m attracted to is straight-acting guys.

Like these bros.

So it was with a lump in my throat and a shaky hand that I filled their plastic red glasses with water from a pitcher, trying not to sweat through my t-shirt or spill all over the table.

That, of course, is when the bro admiring himself in the window turned to me and said, gratingly loudly, “Yo, are you checking us out, bro?”

My mouth instantly dried up, and I fumbled for words. Various responses shot through my mind with the speed of a locomotive, far too fast for me to get a handle on any one of them. I must’ve made a little squeak, or some kind of noise, because the dark-haired one made a smirk and tilted down his mirrored aviator sunglasses to look at me, critically.

“Bro, you OK, bro?”

Read the rest here:

https://www.gayspiralstories.com/newStory/show/1494729

[jockedguy]

Party Time, Bro

The fireworks woke me up out of a deep, sound sleep.  Some idiot was blasting off a handful of them in the neighborhood, and we were isolated enough that it was unlikely any authority figure would be showing up to tell them to quit.

They were exploding in staggered patterns, too — not just one after the other, in a fusillade of sound, but one, then a minute or two would go by before the next one would perform its whistling shriek into the sky, just as I was about to cross over the threshhold back into unconsciousness.  If I were to guess, I’d say they were the fireworks known locally as ‘screamers,’ probably the loudest of the bunch sold down at the store by the beach.

Dimly, I could hear the sound of partygoers, raucously, and likely drunkenly, hollering at one another after the firework completed its scream.  Behind their noise was the sound of a bass, thudding in tune with whatever song was playing.

I rolled over and blearily looked at the clock.  It was ten after eleven.  I really should have just let everything go, maybe shoved my head under the pillowcase and gone back to sleep, but for some reason the shrillness of the screamers, and the jarringly inconsistent rhythm of their explosions, set my teeth on edge.  

Finally, I threw back the sheets.  I sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, listening for just one more scream.  I promised myself — just one more scream, and I would go do something about it.  But maybe that last one wouldn’t come, and I could just drift back into sleep.

The moment elongated.  I even felt my eyelids getting heavier as I sat there, slouched in my t-shirt and boxer shorts, and then, just as I was on the precipice of falling, it came again.

Pop.  Whistle.  Shriiiiiiiiek!

“That does it,” I muttered to myself, eyes flown wide open, all vestiges of sleep gone.  I stood up, wobbling a bit, and grabbed the pair of shorts I’d been wearing that day from the floor, struggling into them.  The dog, sleeping in the corner, lifted his head.  I could hear the jangle of his tags as he did, but, seeing that it was only me, I heard them jangle again, and then heard him emit a little *ruff* of contentment before sliding back into doggo-sleep.

Another screamer, this time almost seeming like it could careen into my bedroom window, shatter the glass and explode next to my eardrum.  I grabbed my phone from the night stand table, winced, and steeled my resolve, heading out into the bristling night.

The wind was cool against my skin as I stepped outside, letting the screen door bang shut behind me.  It sounded like the fireworks, and the party, were just on the other side of the woods from my house.

I like the woods.  There’s a sense of peace, of concealment.  And when you’ve had the kind of life that I’ve had, that kind of thing comes at a cost.  No one bothers me out here.  At least, not yet.  Every once in awhile, you get some jackasses like these, blowing off some steam in one of the rental houses up here, but for the most part, it’s quiet.  

I slid on my running sneakers, still sat next to the front door, on the stoop, and cracked my neck from side to side, trying to work out the lassitude in my muscles.  The shiny black hulk of my SUV in the driveway gleamed in what little moonlight there was.  I was far enough out that there weren’t any streetlights, but I know the road pretty well by now, and I knew the houses around.

My footsteps crunched on the loose gravel as I headed down the road, betraying my presence, but I didn’t bother to slow my steps.  Part of me wished I’d brought the dog — leashed — but he’d offer a pretty convincing growl and snap of the teeth if threatened.

Not that I was planning on being threatened, but you never knew.

Read the rest here:

https://www.gayspiralstories.com/newStory/show/1529510

[jockedguy]

It’s All Good, Bro

So I get road rage every once in awhile.  It’s not like it’s something I can help — it just boils out of me.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my mother was a bus driver, and she spent most of my teenage years fuming at idiots on the road who didn’t obey the rules.

And I’ll tell you, there was something about these bros, whooping and hollering as they swerved to cut me off, like they were having fun doing it.  

Assholes.

So I slammed on my brakes, narrowly avoiding clipping their back bumper, feeling my road rage grow and grow as the two in the backseat flicked me off nonchalantly, not even bothering to look at me as they did it.

Now, most people don’t fuck with me.  I drive a truck — it’s not a big one, but I raised it myself, and I do most of the repairs myself, unless it’s got something to do with the electronics.  I’ve got a few stickers on the back of it that is usually enough to convince anyone dumbass enough to fuck with me otherwise: my NRA sticker, my Punisher sticker, and of course, my Browning logo sticker.  

It’s not that I’m a redneck, but … well, yeah, I’m kind of a redneck.  Like a beach redneck.  The beach has always been my happy place, I guess, unless I’m out in the woods with my gun.  Anywhere in nature.  I try to imagine the pound of the surf, or the sound of the wind in the trees, if I feel myself getting angry.  You know, the old meditation techniques: close your eyes, breathe in, breathe out, imagine your happy place, and soon all the stress just sort of evaporates, turning into little mist particles.

I slammed the car door and got out of the truck, staring daggers across the asphalt at the sandy-haired bro getting out of the Jeep.  “What the fuck!”  I bellowed, mustering my whole six-foot frame to shout.  “You cut me off back there, you asshole!”  

The dude looked up at me, and I caught a flash of something in his eyes.  He was built like a brick shithouse, but oddly enough seemed to be the least muscular of the bros crammed into the Jeep — at least, from what I could see.  

And then the bro with the flattop haircut stuck his body out the back window and hollered at me.  “Sucks to suck, bro!”

I had to close my eyes for a moment, imagining the pound and crash of the surf on the beach.  The sand under my toes.  The heat of the sun on my skin.  I opened my eyes and stepped forward, away from my truck.  “I don’t think you really want to fuck with me, man.  Just saying.”

The flattop-bro had already wriggled his way back inside the Jeep, and was busying high-fiving the other guys.  The driver was ignoring me, which wasn’t doing much to extinguish my blooming rage.  He casually flipped and unhooked the nozzle, inserting it into his gas tank without so much as another glance in my direction.

“Hey,” I said, moving a little closer.  “I’m fucking talking to you, asshole.”

“Bro, chill the fuck out, bro,” he said, without looking up.  “You’re way too wound up, bro.”  The gas guzzled, clunking and sloshing as it went.  I could hear the whir of the numbers ticking up on the pump, counting up the money this probably rich douchebag was going to spend filling his tank.

My fists clenched at my sides.  I felt my nostrils flaring, and I took an unconscious step forward.  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the Jeep’s sideview mirror.  We were a pretty evenly matched pair, if I had to guess, as long as the bros in the Jeep didn’t try to join in and make it an unfair fight.

Read the rest here:

https://www.gayspiralstories.com/newStory/show/1518635

[jockedguy]

I Saw These Bros

I saw these bros at the gym.

I was just there to work out, you know, have a quick lift before lunch.  Nothing crazy.  I wasn’t like, a gymrat or anything.  Not that I hadn’t fantasized about becoming one, before, but it wasn’t an actual, attainable goal.  I had a life, and it was a busy one.  

But the gym was just down the street, on the main drag, by the beach, and I liked to take a little break from working, sitting all day at the computer, to change into my gym clothes and head down to get a good workout.  In comparison to most of the other guys there, I must’ve looked like a dilettante in my schlubby gray t-shirt, off-brand shorts and beat-up old black New Balance sneakers.  

I wasn’t there to win a fashion contest, anyway.  What I wore served me just fine.  Maybe I could’ve used a haircut — it’d been awhile since I’d been to the SuperCuts, but vanity wasn’t necessarily a big sin of mine.

So, yeah, I saw these bros at the gym, and they were the kind of bros that were like, egging each other on.  They had on tanktops, red as warning signs, and matching red shorts.  The only things about them that were different were their hair color and their sneakers.  One of them had black hair, and the other had sandy hair.  The dark-haired bro wore white Nike Air Max sneakers with a big black swoosh logo on the side.  They had no laces - just a zipper up the side, whereas the sandy-haired bro wore Nike hightops, red and black with the white swoosh standing out from miles away, even from my post at the chest press machine.

Over the thump and bump and grind of the gym’s playlist, I could hear them egging each other on, punching each other in the shoulder, guffawing.

There weren’t a whole lot of people in the gym, so they stood out.  Although even if there were, they’d still get noticed.  These bros were ripped.  They had biceps easily 23” around, if I had to guess, massive delts, and sculpted quads.  I could even see the defined teardrop of their thighs, especially when they sat down on the bench to perform their free-weight curls.

It was almost impossible to look away from these bros.  And that’s what they were, no doubt about it — bros.  

I got on the lateral pulldown machine, my favorite, at 75lbs on the weights.  I was no slouch, but compared to them, I was a slouch.  My eyes kept flicking over to them as I counted out my reps — silently, unlike them.  They shouted out their numbers, counting higher and higher.  I watched them strain, their veins standing out against their flesh, so much so that I lost track of my own workout.

I let the weights clang down gently, not wanting to make a spectacle of myself.  That, I’d leave to the bros.

And making a spectacle of themselves was something they seemed to be good at — something they seemed to revel in, actually, the more I watched.  I maybe was full-on gawking by the time I got to my own bicep curls, proceeding with some trepidation to the free-weights area.  As soon as I got there, the musk of them wafted over to me, and I wrinkled my nose as I was assailed by it.  This was the smell of masculinity, a mix of cologne and sweat, nearly dizzying in its potency.  I shook my head and tried to avert my eyes as I went for the 20-lb weights and claimed a bench for my own.

“Bro, check out this bro,” said the dark-haired bro to the sandy-haired one, nudging him and gesturing with his chin in my direction.  I felt my heartbeat increase, and sweat start to collect in the hollows of my neck.  There was no way these bros were talking about me.  No way.

Read the rest here:

https://www.gayspiralstories.com/newStory/show/1483926

[jockedguy]

License and Registration, Bro

“License and registration … bro.”

I didn’t mean to sound so sarcastic, it just sort of flipped out of me that way.  Probably something about the bros in the car.  See, I have two brothers, and they’re both just like these four dudes.  Big, dumb, and kinda out of control.  I’ve always been the “little bro,” because I’m the youngest, and it kinda rankles.  Could be why I became a cop, though I never thought I’d be sitting in a car on a hot day, watching numbers flicker on the radar gun.

Not that I don’t like to party every once in awhile, but you know.  You gotta obey the rules, otherwise, what’s society gonna come to?

To be honest, it’d been kind of a rough week, and it was near the end of the month.  I’d been spending almost every day in my cruiser in the dirt turn-off, hoping to catch some idiot beachgoer tourist who was recklessly disobeying the speed limit, to fill my quota, otherwise the captain was gonna haul me into the office — again.

The limits were posted for a reason.  Up ahead, there was a pretty nasty bend in the road, and people had been killed trying to navigate it.  Probably drunk, too, if I’d had my guess.  Despite the rumble strips that the country had installed, despite the bright yellow signs posted a mile back that said WARNING and CAUTION, there were just bros like this who didn’t bother to pay attention to things like that.  

“Bro, do you even know who we are, bro?”  

I cut my eyes to the dude who spoke, in the backseat.  He was the beefiest of the four of them, built like a bulldog and with a face only a mother could love.  “No,” I said, curtly, moving my eyes back to the driver.  “That’s why I asked for your license and registration.”

The sandy-haired driver narrowed his eyes at me over the rims of his aviator sunglasses, then dug into his back pocket for his wallet.  He thumbed out his license, and nodded to the dark-haired bro sitting beside him to get the registration out from the glove compartment.  He sat there, looking kind of confused for a long moment, and then a lightbulb went off, and he dug through the box in front of him for the requisite paperwork.  

I gave the driver a cool glance, then flicked my eyes down to the license in my hand.  It had a picture of the driver, whose first name read JASON, last name BRODICK.

Brodick.  Really?

Read the rest here:

https://www.gayspiralstories.com/newStory/show/1506703

[jockedguy]

All doors locked.

All windows shut. Locked.

Lights off.

Phone plugged in.

Blue pill, swallowed.

Bedside light, off.

Sheets up to my chin.

My eyes darting around the dark of the bedroom. My heart jolting at every passing schuss of the cars on the street below. The whole building shifting, creaking, under the weight of my neighbors in the adjacent space. I can hear the muffled murmurs of the occupants, unless it’s the television.

I close my eyes and focus on the steady, invariable sound of the air purifier. I breathe in, and out. Normally. Relaxed.

A muscle going lax jerks in a sudden spasm, and my whole body reacts beneath the sheets. My eyes spring open. Drift closed again. Breathing in, and breathing out.

I imagine that I’m closing the movie theatre of my mind for the night, powering down the projectors, sweeping the lobby. Back, and forth, sweeping, breathing in and out.

It’s easy to unspool into dream like this, wading in the shallow waters of sleep.

But light leaks out of the bottom of the movie theatre doors. I look, catching just a glimpse of something moving beyond, and follow its trail as if entranced.

Behind the door, rows and rows of plush red seats, all unoccupied.

The projector up in its small square is vibrating with energy, rattling, casting out a severe glow onto the screen ahead - someone’s here. Someone’s inside, and they’re playing a movie.

The screen is too big to look away. Everywhere I look, the images are there.

“You are now / listening,” intones a voice, directly into my ear, and yet issued from somewhere distant. The crackle of electricity, a brief static, interrupts the words only once. “You are now / listening…"

from "Breaking & Entering" (read the whole story at the link)

'Breaking & Entering' by jockedguy

Someone ... or something ... is breaking into Jeremy's apartment.

[jockedguy]

I Saw This Bro

I saw this bro walking down the beach.

It was a clear day, a warm day.  The sun was caught in a waft of cumulus clouds.  The wind was a hot breath out of the southwest, carrying with it the full, sweet scent of honeysuckle and magnolia.  

How did I know he was a bro?

Maybe it was something about his smile.  Even though he walked alone, he had this little smirk on his face, as though he knew more than the rest of the world.  Maybe it was something about his walk — strong, certain — even though he was walking barefoot through the loose piles of hot sand.

Even the earth tugged at him, so I guess it was only natural that my eyes got tugged to him.

He was one of those guys whose clothing wears him, rather than the other way around.  Something about the way the shirt fell on him, slightly wrinkled, as though he’d pulled it out of a pile.  He was carrying a pair of Jordan-brand slides in his left hand.  He wore thick, black Oakleys with mirrored lenses.  

When this bro passed me, I turned around and started following him.  I kept my distance, though.  I’d stop to look down at the glistening fragments of broken shells along the breakers.  I’d let the greedy ocean nibble at my feet, hiss around my footsteps.  Stop to watch a piper skitter nervously along, then look up, and continue following this bro.

In my head, I named him Jason.  A good bro name.  

In the distance, the pier struck out into the ocean like a long finger.

Maybe that’s where this bro was going, to any one of the businesses in front of the pier, maybe the gym there.  He didn’t carry any kind of duffel bag.  Maybe he was walking to the parking lot, where his red Jeep Wrangler was parking and gleamed meanly in the sunlight.

I followed him to the boardwalk.  The wind loved Jason, loved to ripple and lash his shirt against his broad frame.  I could see from where I followed that this bro Jason was wearing Polo Ralph Lauren under his khaki shorts.  I’d gotten too close.

I stopped and pulled out my phone to pretend-snap a picture of the pier and the shore.  The sun’s height made the shadows pool.  

And then this bro turned around.  Jason turned around and stared right at me, as if he knew what I was doing.  I inched the camera over just a bit, to include him in the frame.  He didn’t move.  My heart was slamming against my ribs.  I waited for him to move towards me, fist raised.  You fuckin creep you takin my picture?

“Yo, are you taking my picture, bro?”  Jason called down the beach.  He was yards away from me...

Read the rest ... 

I Saw This Bro

[jockedguy]

...at first I thought it was a joke. It came in a large cardboard box, a bit battered around the edges (goddamn post office), but otherwise intact, taped efficiently and cleanly around all the edges. It was about the size of a small suitcase, and it had the same sort of weight, when I lifted it up to carry it inside my apartment.

I know, it’s not the best-looking place. I’m pretty tidy, but sometimes life gets in the way, and dishes will pile up, or the laundry, or whatever. If you look in the bedroom, there’s not too much of a mess, and I try to keep the bathroom mold-free. There’s enough room on my bed for the box, and so that’s where it ends up, while I consider it thoughtfully.

Finally, I open it with the use of a letter-opener. The blade flashes, dips, flashes again, as I saw open the top flap. The first thing I see is a shitload of Styrofoam packing peanuts, and a slim white envelope on the top, with my name on it: JOSEPH KINGSLEY.

Most people just call me Joe.

The envelope is not sealed, and all I have to do is slide open the flap and ease out the folded letter inside.

Dear Mr. Kingsley (Joe),

The enclosed is our way of thanking you for your many years of service with the Company.

Please note that this package is uniquely tailored to you as an individual, acknowledging that, while you were with us, you were a small cog in a big machine, but the machine knows who you are.

The letter was not signed. It was typed in plain font on a plain white piece of paper, with no letterhead.

Despite my incredulousness, I was intrigued, and before I knew it, my apartment floor was littered with the white squeak of packing peanuts and my severance package was revealed to me as …

A pile of clothes.

My jaw dropped before I could control it, in a hilariously cartoonish reaction. I drew out the articles of clothing, one by one, feeling a weird sensation of nostalgia cascade over me. It was like receiving a tie from a loved one, or a pair of socks from an aunt, at Christmastime. I instinctively felt the need to thank the gifter, through clenched teeth and pasting on the fakest smile that I could - until I returned to reality to further inspect what else lay inside the box.

It wasn’t a full wardrobe, but it was close. At least five shirts, two pairs of pants, even down to socks and boxer briefs (new, from what I could tell - there was no odor), and two pairs of shoes in the bottom of the box, wedged into one another as though cuddling.

And it was the wardrobe for some other man. Not for me.

“They gave me clothes,” I said to the air, wonderingly, before a gust of laughter overtook me. “They gave me someone else’s clothes.”

The fucking company that I had given ten years of my life to had given me someone else’s severance package. It was really too good to be true, the ultimate punchline to the ultimate joke. “Fucking A,” I said out loud, marveling at the truth.

I wouldn’t be caught dead in these clothes. They were easily two sizes too big for me - XL and even XXL shirts, with pants ranging from waist-size 36 all the way to 40. The sneakers were even obviously pre-owned, with small tells in the cracks of the shoe where the previous owner had worn them in.

But who in the world would have this … as a severance package? The brands were all pretty good - mostly Nike, and Jordan - and might even fetch a good price on eBay - but it couldn’t have made more than a thousand bucks, all told, if it could bring a good price at auction. Plus, there’s the effort of actually listing it all, and taking the pictures - it was all such a bother.

Idly, I reread the letter. “The machine knows who you are,” I repeated, and laughed again, until I felt a little tearing cramp in my side, and quieted down. “Yeah, right.”

And now there was the matter of cleaning up the mess. The peanuts, scattered by static electricity, had seen fit to colonize my apartment. I swept most of them up with a broom, but had no doubt I’d be seeing them floating around for days, if not months, to come. The clothes themselves I took out of the box and laid in piles on the sofa. They were a lot brighter than I was accustomed to - just seeing them in my space was kind of jarring, as I usually took to black, or earth-tone colors. Muted darks, to blend in, to be unnoticed. These were blazons, clarion calls of color, demanding attention be paid.

I kept finding more in the box as I cleaned and sorted - a couple of tank tops, wedged into one of the sneakers, a fitted hat with the Jordan jumpman on the front in bright, searing crimson - and just laughed again.

Once the laughter wore off, I was confronted by the pile of clothes and just felt weary as hell. The reality of being unemployed was sinking in. My brain started spooling out catastrophes of finance, employment, needing assistance - I shook my head and sighed.

The clothes had a strange odor to them - kind of overpowering, as I noticed it - as though someone drenched in cologne had brushed by me on the street, imprinting on me with its warm miasma...

From “The Severance Package,” a mini-novel.  Click on the title to read the full story.