Chapter 4 #3
I’m scrolling the AFL website about a Port Adelaide key forward’s season-ending ACL injury when a Grindr notification flashes on my phone.
Like any Office Gay?, I live in constant terror that one day the extremely recognisable boop sound will go off and the whole workplace will find out I’m a massive slut.
But as usual, my phone is on mute.
It’s the fake muscle labourer profile.
Hey bro
Right before I tap the ‘block’ option, a second message comes through.
Do u work at ECU? Think I just walked past ya.
‘Holy hell,’ I mutter, whipping my head around so fast my headset nearly slides off. It’s a real profile after all.
‘Sorry?’ a voice at the end of the phone line says.
Jesus Christ. Forgot I was browsing Grindr while on a work call.
‘Uh – that’s H for Holy …’ I say. ‘Uh, sorry, I was looking at the wrong code – give me a moment.’
I don’t wanna get fired. I focus on helping the student.
The moment the call is wrapped up, I reply to the rough-trade guy.
Yeah man I work in the call centre. Staff only up here on this level tho. Which department were you in? Have you left or still here? U staff or student?
He sees the message. My breath catches in my throat as I scan the room. How is there a guy this hot here and I didn’t notice?
A new message appears. Not staff or student. My BF is a physio student. I was dropping his prac documents to Student Services for him. Still here. Just in the dunnies. Pretty quiet here ay ;)
My pulse quickens. Is that an invitation?
I add the smirking-face emoji to suggest that, if he’s offering a sordid tryst in the work dunnies, I would absolutely be into it.
Maybe it’s crazy but you gotta roll with these things when they fall into your lap.
Some days you can spend hours talking to a hundred guys and get nowhere.
Other days, a two-minute exchange between the right two guys leads to an instant hookup so hot it should be in porn.
The muscle bro replies. Cum meet me here and find out. ;)
My dick springs to attention. If there’s one thing I know for sure about myself, it’s that I’m horny all the time. Sometimes I shoot three or four loads a day. I blame it on the Italian genes and the homo genes fusing together to make me one giant super slut.
But surely I am not that much of a rampant man whore as to abandon my teammates during a work crisis for a dirty fuck with a stranger in the dunnies?
You know what? I am.
I glance around to make sure the coast will be clear. Of the other three guys, one is away sick and the other two are on calls.
I mouth ‘Toilet!’ at my supervisor Carol and jog down the corridor with my headset still on.
I head into the dunnies. The muscle bro is standing there gormless, hands in his pockets and eyes on me.
He’s not in hi-vis, but he’s the same guy: dark Italian features, thick veiny neck, tattooed muscles bulging from a too-tight black sports polo from a gym where he must work.
Tight shorts hug his muscular arse. He smells of sweat and protein farts.
I think he was in here taking a dump until I replied.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘You’re real.’
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘You’re hot.’
We start making out, hypersexual animals. His mouth tastes like meat pie.
A ringing sound comes through in my ear.
‘Shit!’ I cry, pulling away.
I’m an idiot. I forgot to log off the phones.
‘Can’t you ignore it?’ the guy asks, leaning in to kiss me again.
It badly hurts my stats if I don’t answer – plus Carol will murder me.
‘Two seconds,’ I say, putting my hands around his arse and squeezing. His butt cheeks are like concrete. ‘I can answer it from here.’
I press the button on my headset and take the call. I talk the student through the process, while unzipping my fly and flopping my semi out, jerking my head at the bro for him to go down on me while I’m on the call. He shakes his head.
‘Nah, I don’t suck cock,’ he says gruffly.
I cover the headset with my hand. ‘How can you not – what?’
‘Just not into it, ay,’ he says, crossing his arms over his chest. His guns are the size of John Cena’s. I need him inside me. ‘Why don’t ya suck me?’
I point at the headset.
‘Oh yeah, right,’ he mutters, like he hadn’t worked out I need my mouth free for a phone call.
Not only the body of John Cena, but the brains, too.
While I’m still on my call, he snakes his hand underneath my waistband and starts to grope my arse. I bend over the basin and he curls a finger close to my arsehole.
I try to focus on wrapping up the call. ‘Now all you need is the rego code and …’
Shit. I’m not in front of my computer.
In my least proud moment ever, I make up a fake code for the student. He hangs up.
I leave my phone off the hook so no more calls can come through.
‘Fuck me,’ I beg the muscle bro.
He spits in his hand. Instead of sliding his cock in, he fingers me, hard and aggressive. His thick index finger rubs against my prostate like he’s saying ‘come here’ to my arse. My hole is suctioned onto him, twitching, my dick hard.
I’ll lose my job if anyone walks in. I’m so turned on I don’t care.
‘Seriously, fuck me,’ I groan.
He grins, his finger still vibrating furiously in my hole. ‘Nah, gotta get back to work. Bit too public here for anal. You close?’
I yank my undies off and stroke my meat all of three times before exploding, spraying my jizz all over the bathroom mirror.
‘Pretty close,’ I pant. ‘Yep.’
The bro slides his finger out of my hole and then sniffs it deep, eyes rolling back in his head a bit. ‘Hot arse, mate. I’d love to eat you out some time, ay.’
He’s got a blokey, country twang to his accent I wouldn’t have expected. He looks like a classic Guido gym bro, but there’s some ocker Paul Hogan element in there too.
I wipe my seed off the mirror with paper towels.
‘Tonight, your place?’ I offer. ‘I live with straight housemates, can’t host.’
‘Can’t tonight, got plans in the city. I’m Jack, anyway,’ he says. ‘And you are Zee-kee, according to your name badge?’
‘Zeke,’ I correct him. ‘One syllable.’
‘Ahh, like ZEEK, gotcha,’ Jack says, nodding slowly. He’s hot but dumb: a conversation with him would be like spelling in the NATO phonetic alphabet to Colby for every single sentence. ‘D’you wanna fuck tomorrow, Zeke?’
‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘Graduation.’
‘Damn, I’m horny as. Look, I gotta get back to work,’ Jack says, before pointing his thumb at the gym logo on his polo shirt.
‘I’m a PT at Legends Gym. I’ll find you on Grindr, we’ll set up a time.
’ He holds out his fist and for a second I think he’s going to punch me, before I realise it’s a fistbump. I bump back. Are we homos or bros?
‘Sounds good,’ I say.
As Jack reaches the door, he says, ‘Ah, nearly forgot – the reason you caught my attention was cos I saw you doing ya footy tipping, then found you on Grindr. Not often I find other guys into footy on there.’
I could tell him I’m a geek and if anyone overheard him referring to me as a ‘guy into footy’ they’d laugh. But this is a hookup. No sense involving the truth.
‘Oh yeah, keen on my footy tipping,’ I say. ‘I’m seventh in the league.’
‘Out of how many?’
‘Sixty,’ I say, suddenly vulnerable, like I’m holding up my heart to be smacked away. This daydream was for my father, not a random.
Jack nods, impressed. ‘Ay, not bad, bro!’
I get a full-body shiver. It might be delight.
It makes me stupid enough to go one step too far. ‘I changed my tip for tonight. Thomson’s out with an ACL injury so Port aren’t looking so strong,’ I tell Jack, like I’m a guru. He cringes at the term ACL, like he knows full well how season-ending that is. ‘So, my money’s on the Hawks now.’
Jack taps his nose. ‘Good to know. I hadn’t even heard that yet, and I keep on top of most things. Might change my tips too. You’re like Footy Yoda, all wise and shit, bro!’
I get the buzz of delight again. I would love to be Footy Yoda.
‘Tell you what,’ Jack says, ‘me and my boyfriend just started a social footy club for gay blokes who wanna play footy in a chill environment – no dickheads, ya know? You should come train with us.’
My ego lodges in my throat. Sprung. I’ve never played footy in my life. I want to say no, but the people-pleaser in me wins out. ‘Wow, really? My kinda team! Where do I sign up? Count me in, man, count me in!’
I float right out of my body in horror as Jack replies, ‘Sweet, we train Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings. I’ll send you a link! Seeya there, bro!’
He leaves.
I stare in the streaked-mirror reflection of me with my Ninja Turtles T-shirt and Marvel cap. What was I thinking, saying yes to playing footy? If I rock up, they’ll all find out I’m a massive fraud.
The bathroom door swings open. Bevan, one of the guys in the call centre, strolls in, nodding on his way past. If he’d walked in two minutes earlier, I would’ve lost my job. I would’ve crashed and burned and been exposed as the dirty, self-serving man whore I am.
Why do I wish he’d caught me?
When I get home from work, Sabrina’s Mitsubishi ASX has beaten me home: I park my ageing white Nissan Maxima on the paved driveway behind her.
Usually, we spend Friday nights together with Chinese takeaway from Shining Dragon and some TV series, but I’m not convinced I’ll stay awake long enough tonight.
It was a hectic day. Dealing with Colby types was infuriating.
Working after an orgasm was excruciating when my body wanted to curl up like a Golden Retriever and kip under my desk.
And the drive home was marred by those never-ending Mitchell Freeway roadworks we were all promised had ended but which somehow magically returned to ruin our lives.
I’m ready for a vodka and a wank and a sleep.