Episode
19 – In Joey’s Eyes
Trace walked into his apartment, tossed his
keys on the table, and stood motionless in the middle of the
kitchen. He had returned home to cum, and he knew he would be
fisting himself toward climax in a matter of moments, but at
this moment, he could not move his body, paralyzed as it was
by fear, as he thought about Dennis’ request and said
aloud: “Now I have to get tested for HIV?”
Trace knew this feeling of paralysis was more
akin to ambivalence than hypochondria, and he ran the painfully
familiar conundrum of Dennis through his mind: “He likes
me, so why don’t I like him? It’s not like he’s
beastly, and I’m some beauty. God knows, there are plenty
of flaws—physical and financial—about me? Why can’t
he be enough? What exactly does it take to peak my interest?
Why isn’t he enough? What is enough?”
Tired of the hamster running the indecision
of his mind, Trace thought-stopped, a process stronger than
refusal but less potent than denial, and walked into his bedroom.
Ignoring the light switch, he opened the closet door and reached
inside. He mindlessly fumbled through the familiar stack of
tapes. He repeated the titles of the first four tapes, as he
fingered them in the dark: “’Rim Shot,’ ‘Man
Hole,’ ‘Cell Block Nine,’ ‘Boxers.’”
Finding the search tedious, Trace committed to the fifth tape,
pulled it from the stack, and ignored the remaining tapes as
they threatened to topple off the shelf to the floor of the
dark closet.
Passing through the hallway, Trace realized,
although he knew every tape on that shelf intimately, he had
no idea which tape he carried in his hand, and he realized it
did not matter. Something about the finality of the selection,
something akin to a forced newness, stiffened his cock, as he
looked at the videocassette and resolved himself to getting
off with it: “Rim Master.”
Trace was pleased, as it was the most unfamiliar
of the familiar tapes. This unfamiliarity stemmed from its being
a cheaply produced, meaning poorly edited, four-hour studio
compilation. Such compilations are loosely edited around an
erotic theme and are the cheapest video porn available. Trace
owned two of these tapes. This one featured rimming and the
other featured fucking. Neither of these activities figured
highly or even existentially often in Trace’s formation
of sexual desire, as of yet, but unable to avoid the more polished
porn, Trace could not resist their ten dollar price tag. He
figured for this ratio of porn to dollar he could get into whatever
fetish or sexual act unified the sex scenes. As long as it featured
man-on-man action, he was good to cum.
Trace bought all his porn from the bargain
bins of adult video stores and clearance lists of by-the-mail
porn catalogs, which he started receiving just after registering
with the Selective Service. He knew these tapes would, as the
ass of mass-market pornography, have the most overtly sexualized
titles. Every time he bought one, he hoped the hyperbolic title
would reveal something of the over hyped and much feared lie
of porn and turn the insides of his cock raw from so much cum
pumping; however, this was never the case. As far as Trace was
concerned, all porn could simply be titled “Mundane Maintenance
Masturbation Material” for this is the truth of porn.
If a tape is titled “Ass Lovers” it delivers—as
labeled—ass play. More accurately, it delivers scene after
scene of sex, which includes ass play to some extent. Ass play
can be very enjoyable, but watching scene after scene of it
is fun only as long as your erection is stiff and your juices
are jonesing to flow, for the reality of unmet sexual need constitutes
the truth of porn—a truth twisted into a lie by the anti-porn
camp. Porn reveals a very simple human truth, humans need to
get off sometimes, and tapes like “Ass Lovers” help
a great many of us do just that—especially since the Platonic
divide of Western Culture anointed Onan as a martyr and resigned
sexual need to autoeroticism, unless of course you seed to breed.
This is not merely truth in titling; instead,
it is a larger issue of verisimilitude, some sort of fleshly
realism, for the lie of porn really speaks truth to power, as
it reveals sex as a quotidian human need. The common humanity
of sex, as revealed by “Ass Lovers,” is that some
people like to jerk-off while watching people in active and
passive ass play. The body in need of release is the point behind
the thing; there is nothing more about it. A tape titled “Fucking”
most likely features people fucking, and after the fade to flaccid,
the visual repetition of thrusting or the next fuck coupling
becomes lackluster. After all, what’s the point after
the need has been seeded? Fucking being more common than frequent
provides porn its raison d’etre. The only lie porn tells
is the one priests and parents do not want you to hear: People
commonly fuck; people want to fuck commonly.
Every time he bought a new tape, Trace longed
for one more properly titled “Kissing M4M.” His
index finger frequently suffered repetitive stress injuries
from rewinding, so he could linger over the precious few kissing
scenes most video porn provided. Left alone—always alone—with
his aching finger, Trace had no choice but to manage his own
estate, and so, from time to time, he bought another tape.
Trace inserted “Rim Master” into
the VCR. By the time the tape disappeared into the machine’s
throat, he had his pants around his ankles, hit sneakers kicked
off, and was sitting on the couch with his socked feet propped
up on the coffee table. With remote in-hand and extended between
his knees, he hit play.
The VCR made a whirling noise, as it filled
the screen with an extreme close up of lips on lips. However,
this was not quite the kissing Trace longed for. In keeping
with its title, the scene depicted one man licking another man’s
asshole. The camera was so close the hairs on both men’s
lips could be seen. Trace could never understand the need for
such extreme close ups. The erection is in the context. The
scene was so tight you could barely tell sex was being performed
or whom it was being performed on or by. In this way, it was
vaguely asexual. Trace studied the hair follicles lining the
men’s lips; he knew a razor had been used in both cases
but could not bring himself to think about how the man getting
eaten managed to shave his asshole without nicking it.
Choosing not to ponder further, Trace hit fast
forward and sought a scene by which he could simulate the stimulation
he needed. Suddenly, he found himself thinking about Dennis.
“This is not working!” exclaimed
Trace, as he hit play and resolved himself to getting off on
whatever scene the tape stopped on. Tossing aside the remote,
he looked toward the screen and saw Joey Stefano, and his cock
thickened in response. Reaching between his parted legs, he
wrapped his palm and fingers around his fully extended cock
and stroked slowly and firmly.
Stefano lay face down on another man, who lay
on his back facing Stefano. Stefano’s olive toned body
was draped over the man’s equally olive-toned body, and
their dark haired heads were tucked under each other’s
crotches, as they buried their tongues in one another’s
ass.
Trace stopped breathing, as his cock flamed
in his hands and released a torrent of heated cum into the air.
It landed with an audible splat on his stomach, as he tilted
his hips and fisted every last drop from his steaming cock slit
and locked eyes with Stefano, who now gazed into his partner’s
asshole, as if pondering a question.
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