MR. DARYL RALEIGH WAS TAKING A SHOWER at the YMCA gym and lingering in the locker room in the same way he had done for twenty years. He was feeling abandoned by the situation.
He had been to the doctor earlier that day. His doctor wanted to put him on testosterone treatment and explained it was because Mr. Raleigh’s body wasn’t really making it anymore. “Happens to a lot of us,” explained the doctor. Mr. Raleigh refused it at first because he had already been horny and violent most of his life—there was something in the cooling of his hormones that felt … nice? That same evening at the gym he was on the elliptical watching commercials playing between news segments. An ad for erectile dysfunction played after an ad for hair implants, followed lastly by an ad for testosterone treatment. The testosterone ad showed a montage of one chubby man struggling at the gym, a man with the same build as the first crying alone on a bench in an empty park, and last, a man binge eating. The ad explained that hormone treatment could cure all these behaviors and Mr. Raleigh felt all but personally attacked. The news segment then began by talking about the current drought. The drought was also having certain social effects.
The drought had killed all the gym cruising, though Mr. Raleigh also remembered other droughts. “The droughts inside,” he said, lathering his left armpit.
Droughts were factual and personal. Sun and no rain, scorched earth, and dry sky: whenever the news flashed the word “DROUGHT” every Californian had a civil duty and (as suggested by the news) either showered with a friend, took shorter showers, or perhaps didn’t even shower at all. Either way, most of the shower population of the men’s locker room seemed absent save for Mr. Raleigh and the five other lurkers he had got sick of boning nearly twenty years ago. He wasn’t too alarmed; he had survived these droughts before.
When he looked down at his body he felt like it had abandoned him, too. Where had all the years gone? There were ghosts of other bodies floating in and around him. He was looking down at himself from a vertical vantage point—beer belly, modest cock, beautiful skin … it was the beer gut that he was cutting (and his hate handles) that led to this excursion of self-inflicted gym torture. He was depressed; he gained weight. He was older, and it didn’t just melt away like it used to, so now he would drag his sore body into a daily psychological battle with the elliptical and treadmills at the gym. An hour prior, he had been pedaling away on the elliptical, making direct eye contact with himself in the mirror on the machine, sweating like a whore in a gym, doing cardio in a fear-based manner. He pictured all the men he’d had over the years and the different phases of his body as if they were both moon cycles. But there were no stark conclusions to be made, really—he could never get any man to act right, even when he had muscles. He thought about how some love burns itself up and how some love freezes to death.
He had been dating two men younger than him. One was Ben, and the other was David.
Whenever he thought of Ben all he saw was a baby boy doll wrapped in cellophane. The boy was a living, breathing My Buddy doll. He had even gone so far as to date himself when he explained the reference to Ben.
“My Buddy was this play doll in the mideighties marketed to little boys—the idea was to teach little boys that it was ok to be nurturing, loving, and that it was only natural to have a friend that you take care of,” he explained, wasted one night in bed.
Mr. Raleigh himself had been a bit too old for the dolls but he remembered being fascinated by the commercials. The theme song went: “MY BUDDY, MY BUDDY / WHEREVER I GO, HE GOES / MY BUDDY, MY BUDDY / MY BUDDY AND ME.”
It was short-lived and by the nineties all men had completely cut out their hearts and little boys had to be ready to do the same—none of that faggot-ass playing with dolls bullshit.
Mr. Raleigh had somehow managed to keep his heart intact. Wherever Mr. Raleigh went, Ben went. The pair attended art engagements, orgies, and even the bathroom together. Mr. Raleigh had been over the lustful side of sex, the wham-bam of it all and the feverish high pitch that eventually washed over him after the climax. He saw in the young boy a chance to step back, to go to dinner, to be held again.
It worked too well. Eventually the young boy held him very still, until the nights became too still, so motionless that Mr. Raleigh relied on old tricks. He saw the slow-motion repulsion in Ben’s face when he told him that he was sleeping with David.
He saw the sparkle leave the young boy’s eyes. He would pay for that.
David was truly his match, unfortunately. Mr. Raleigh always expected the worst, in himself and in other people. He suspected that David had never loved him—he just needed a sponsor. The second Ben was gone David stopped putting out. He even started to fuck Mr. Raleigh’s friends. The older man was so lonely and guilty he let it all happen.
The irritating part was that when he confronted him, David would never admit to his trespasses. The boy was too noble to say, “I’m an asshole. I did these things.” That was the shit that bothered the old man. Like how David alluded to always having open dialogue but nonetheless kept deep secrets.
In a broad stroke Mr. Raleigh thought about how the Natives of the continent were conquered not entirely by all-out warfare, but by polite-sounding treaties of peaceful words that sounded nice but were total fucking lies. Polite lies are how men conquer, saying empty things while psychically cutting their opponent’s throat through unseen actions. He hated the way David was all polite talk and manners. He didn’t understand when Mr. Raleigh was drunk and threw things or when he confronted David about fucking his friends. The boy thought this was “too emotional”; he called it “uncouth,” even. There would be no closure or resolve. It would all have to be fine.
Mr. Raleigh noticed that he had been in the shower so long the water had turned cold. This was certainly only making the drought worse.
He did his postgym ritual: drying off, and moisturizing, which was usually followed by deep reflections in the mirror, before escaping into the autumn evening outside.
Mr. Raleigh was bent over and drying his toes in front of his locker when he felt it—a finger on the opening of his anus.
He turned around to see a Black gentleman a bit younger than himself. He looked as if he had had a few more weeks at that gym than Mr. Raleigh did; his face was young but his hair was completely gray and there was a sliver of precum hanging from the head of his dick. He was handsome.
Without talking the two men ducked into a shower stall together and closed the curtain. Mr. Raleigh bent over and was taken aback by the fact that in twenty years he had never been fucked in a shower at the gym. He remembered that his body still had one valuable gift: it was available.
Mr. Raleigh threw himself into the ritual—arching his back and moaning, waiting for the gray-haired gentleman to climax. His body knew this dance well.
“The gray hair is hereditary—I saw you staring at it,” said the gentleman as he left the shower stall.
Mr. Raleigh was proud of himself. He still had it after all.
He escaped to the outside of the gym, en route to his car.
“I’m never going back to that horrible fucking place ever again,” he said, walking away for what he knew would be a long time.