Running with G

My mate G came over to take me jogging.

"I'm just here to help out with your fitness," said G, bouncing on the balls of his feet on the front porch. "Are you smoking again?" Direct hit!

Singlet, hairy chest, white footy shorts, narrow waist, hairy legs, and how he fills out those two squares of white material? You have to see it. Yes, very clever, a Greek boy in small shorts running ahead of me, don't think I'm not awake up to you.

"What was that first question?"

"Just answer it?"

"Um..." it crossed my mind to lie... "Yes."

"Come on, that means we are going to have to run further."

"Um, remind me when did I asked you to do this?"

"What are friends for?"

"That was going to be my next question."

Still, it was a lovely day, the sun was shining the sky blue.

"Couldn't we go bike riding?"

"Bikes are for girls."

"I'm sure all those guys who compete in the Tour de F..."

"Nyr!" He held his hands up kind of like reverse jazz hands, not that he'd know what that was. "You're not in the Tour De France. Let's go."

"No bikes?"

"No fucken bikes!" He starts jogging away from me. He looks back. Cheeky smile. “You faggot.” He starts to sprint away from me.

“You in those shorts is queer bating, let me tell you.” I call out. He slows and wiggles his arse at me. "Nice," I say. I run after him. "You know what I'll be jerking off to tonight."

He looks back at me with pained expression. "Settle down, will ya."

"Don't wiggle it at me then."

"Less yap, more running. Jesus!"

“You love it.”

“In your dreams, Chriso.”

You Don't Hit Up On Straight Boys When They Are With Their Girlfriends

I saw G with Valentina, he was his usual, smiley, handsome self. I looked him up and down like I usually do, the moments he'd smile and say, see something you like, but he stepped back and gave me big eyes. This is the boy who asks me which running shorts make his cock look bigger. This is the guy who strips down to his jocks at the slightest suggestion, so I can tell him how sexy his body looks. This is the guy who asks me how he’d score in a gay club.

It suddenly dawned on me who G looks like, Clive Owen.

He took my out stretched hand and lent in with gritted teeth saying, Christian. He was all blokey.

What's up with you? "Valentina." We kissed on the cheek.

I looked at G and pointed to my cheek and him, with raised eyebrows. I held his gaze, started to pout my lips, when the big lug leaned in and kiss me. Nice stubble, warm skin, a little heavy on the aftershave.

"Babe," I whispered in his ear. "You smell nice."

"Good to see you buddy," said G.

Of course, it's the girlfriend. You don't hit on a straight boy when his girlfriend is around because, well, because it's just plain rude.

She'll be on to you in minutes.

He won't do anything with her around, anyway.

You'll only scare him and you'll put the case of gay boys having sex with straight boys back years. Not that I want to have sex with G, ha, ha, don't make me laugh, but, I’m sure, you get my point.

It has to be secret men's business, kept a secret from the girls.

She's cool, Valentina, a little too corporate lawyer, (you know, the ones who are destroying the world) but, apart from that one failing, (what the corporations don't destroy the lawyers surely will) she's okay.

And there's a good game to play on G, show-your-girl-friend-how-gay-you-can-be. Just threatening, never actually following through, just to keep him on his toes. See the fear in his eyes.

It's not that Valentina really cares, she's cool with it. No, it's because your straight boy suddenly becomes the beacon of heterosexuality that he thinks he should be. They can't help it. In the genes, even the evolved ones. And G is an evolved straight boy, 21st Century, X-gen, Greek boy. I patted him on the arse, when Valentina headed to the toilet.

He looked at me and smiled.

"How you been?" I asked.

"Yeah, good. You?"

"Good..."

"Is going down on pussy, you know totally, completely safe?"

"Why?"

"Just answer the question, will ya?"

"Well, yeah, pretty much... I guess..."

"That's good." He looked relieved.

"No guarentees, though," I said. "Why?"

"Nothing."

"Why!"

"Oh, I had an incident, out with the boys." He twitched his neck. "Four guys, one chick..."

I'm sure I was looking with suitably wide eyes.

"Oh Jesus! It's not like I wanted to.” He looked in the direction that Valentina had gone. “It just happened. We were drunk... Stop looking at me like that."

"We've been through this..."

"Get fucked..."

"If you say you are having a monogamous relationship, there is nobody else," I said. "Otherwise, don't say it. Repeat after me..."

"Get Fucked!" said G. "She was just some bitch." He screwed his face up. "Just some dumb, drunk fucken bitch."

"You paint such a pretty picture."

"She meant nothing."

"Like your agreements around your relationship."

"Jesus! I don't come here for this..."

"Yes, yes you do," I said. "I haven't seen you in ages... and it was the first thing out of your mouth."

G raised his hand to his forehead and stared at me with a screwed up mouth, it's when I know I've got him.

"Bad G," I said. "You've got a fucking kid. Another beer?"

"Yes, please," said Valentina, as she approached the table. "Why a fucking kid?"

"Nothing," said G. He looked at me with scared eyes.

I hesitated, just briefly, but it was enough to change the expression on Valentina's face. "Um." My mouth went dry. "My swearing." I could feel the sweat on my face. "I've really got to get it under control. It's got so bad recently." Smile. "Three beers." I turned to walk away, just as Valentina directed her suspicious gaze towards G.

"I don't sleep with boys who have got kids." I laughed.

Valentina laughed, the tension left her face.

G laughed nervously.

How Does It Feel

I'm half way through a bottle of red wine, I figure that's all that's left for me now. My last addiction, which was never really an addiction at all. Booze is a poor man's drug.

Shane bought down a bottle of Valium, saying they mix well with red wine. You won't care about anything. Smoking. Nothing. Take two.

I'm waiting for the apathy to kick in, as G arrives.

I tried to plug the cord for my lap-top into my A drive. Clearly something is working.

You've made a life time of trying to plug your end into the wrong hole, says G.

Unless it smells like shit when it comes out, you are just not doing it right, I say.

G grimaces.

Change the world!

Change it to what, though?

G shrugs.

An egalitarian society where everyone is treated well, I ask?

No, nothing that fucking radical, says G.

I'd make all the straight boys crave man on man sex...

In your dreams, says G.

You should see what you do in my dreams.

G smiles nervously.

Would you accept Jesus into your heart, for this new world?

Jesus is just my type, I say, dark, swarthy. I'd accept him into my bed. Suck his cock! Divine spoof.

Jesus is the saviour.

I'm the devil with the pitch fork and the horns, I say. It's a much cooler part.

G drinks from another bottle of wine and scoffs 2 v's, but his pants still don't come off. (you know what straight boys are like on alcohol)

Do you want to see me naked? G slurs.

No, that would be like perving on my brother, I say.

We finish our bottles of wine and wrap ourselves in blankets and sing, He ain't heavy...

We think we sound grand.

The phone rings and there is just heavy breathing on the other end.

Say something obscene, says G.

Fuck off cunt, I slur and G laughs. That's obscene?

Your mother sucks on dead bitch dog's cunts in hell, yells G, after he snatches the phone from my hand. Pulling the dried, deteriorating vaginal skin from her lips in sheets. He makes slurping noises with his mouth.

I quietly take the remaining red wine away from him

G and I both watch, "I'm not there" and neither of us get it.

You do look like Christian Bale, though, Christian, says G.

Get fucked!

But you do!

I've heard it all before, I hear myself slur, as my head spins on the wine. I can't see it.

The only drug left to me, I say. And it's the worst one of all.

That's cause your a pig.

Am not, I say.

Piggy, piggy, piggy, piggy, piggy, piggy, piggy, says G. (which sounds strange coming from a straight boy's mouth)

And a D series Citroen comes on the screen, Heath Ledger drives away in it, and G loses me completely.

The most beautiful car ever designed, I say.

You're the most beautiful guy ever born, slurs G.

No more wine for you, I say.

yOU GOT ANOTHER BOTTLE AND i'LL DO ANY THING...

Promises, promises, I say.

Suck me off...

I'm calling your girlfriend, I say.

Kate Blanchett sucks on a cigarette and I hate her guts... big time! I want her killed!

You got it bad, says G

Have not.

I saw you inhale when she did.

Get fucked, I say. I chug on my red wine, totally unconvinced.

G puts his arm around me.

I lay my head against his chest.

Bob Dylan sings, How does it feel.

Neither of us say anything.

What do you think Jesus' bum crack would smell like? I ask.

Shit, says G.

What does Valentina's cunt taste like, I ask?

Piss, says G.

I take another Valium, washed down with more red wine.

Running With G

G talked me into going running, last night. Well, it was more of a walk, my knee is still clicking badly. I’m sure I can feel bones rubbing together. Clunk, clunk. Clunk, clunk.

Come on you pussy, run, he said, as I slowed to a walk.

Na-ah!

Ah-ha!

Na-ah!

We were doing our best cheesy, American sitcom take-offs.

I can’t, my knees crap, I said. I warned you before we came out.

You girl.

You’re a girl.

Am not.

Are so…

Then he pulled down the front of his shorts and waggled his cock at me, in the middle of Fitzroy Gardens.

Not a girl!

Put it away…

So you reckon the boys would like it?

(It’s funny how straight boys, at least, want to know they are desirable, even to guys. G normally appears quite chuffed when I tell him one of my gay mates fancies him)

I remember the time he came around in a panic, his girl friend, actually, his wife at the time, had managed to stick her nail extension up his piss slit when she’d been pulling him off and he had bled every where, profusely. He whipped it out and asked me if I thought it looked damaged.

I gave him the same answer then, as I did now.

Make it hard and I'll tell you.

Ha, ha!

Sure the boys would like it…you seem to want to.

Ha, ha, said G, again.

If you waxed your back, that is.

What’s wrong with my…he looked over his shoulder, at which point he realised he had a t-shirt on. He punched me on the arm. It hurt.

You know, when I think about it, G and I almost have a teenage relationship. We’re like brothers, teenage brothers, in a strange kind of sense. He only ever had sisters and I was never close with my brother, so we have that relationship that we would have had with close brothers. We play, we muck around, we kid with each other. We talk the biggest load of shit, really. I guess we've know each other for quite some time.

He says he can mess around with me, flash his cock, ask me if I think he needs to trim his pubes, be quite intimate with hugs and kisses, he always wants me to massage his shoulders and stuff like that, because he knows I’d never hit on him…like a brother. And I would never hit on him, it would be like hitting on my own brother. Oooo! (grimace) is my only reaction at the thought of getting sexy with G.

Some of my mates still reckon G wants to have sex with me.

No, he doesn't, is always my answer.

You’re kidding yourself.

No, I’m not.

Damned if they do and damned if they don’t – being comfortable with gay guys, or not being comfortable with them. You know, at the extreme, they are either homophobic or closet cases; sometimes, in a sense, they just can’t be comfortable with who every one is. We don’t always let them, well, that’s what G says.

So we walked around Fitzroy Gardens, G complaining the whole way.

Come on, run a bit.

Walk a bit, you tosser.

I’ll never burn enough carbs at this rate.

And you've got those luv handles developing nicely too…

What! (He doesn't have an ounce of fat on him) He twisted at the waist like a super model.

I ran a bit, just to shut him up. The dappled shadows from the elms were beautiful.

Do you think I need a hair cut?

Well, now that you mention it.

And what are you trying to say with your hair? he said, in his best Queer Eye for the Straight guy voice. (I am in desperate need of a hair cut, it is true) Is long hair back in? Or are you planning the op, some time soon?

Nah, just been busy.

Well, you’ll never get a guy looking scruffy like that, he lisped. Let me tell you maaate! Turning from bitch to butch on the turn of his thick, neck muscles.

Ha, ha, I said. At least I can be faithful.

Get fucked! He punched my arm, again.

Well, have you?

Get fucked!

Well?

Yes, he said, suddenly sounding exasperated. You've taught me well.

G used to say that he could screwed around on his girlfriends because he knew it was only sex and it didn't mean any thing. But if his girlfriend screwed around on him, it meant she didn't love him and she wasn't committed to him. He could tell me that with an absolute straight face and mean it. That, amazingly, took many, many hours, years of discussion to convince him otherwise.

He pulled his t-shirt off. How am I looking?

You look great, you big poofter. He’s been doing gym 6 days a week and he really does look great.

He smiled. (He’s just been in Queensland) I put on my red speedos (he ran his hands over his crotch) and went and sun baked on the beach, up at Trinity. He smiled his broadest grin. The bitches just circled, it was fucken fantastic!

6.1, handsome, Greek, with a super gym-toned body, you do the maths, I thought.

Come on, Claudia, I said. Let’s head home.

G (look a like)

Me & G & the Park

So the elms are dying from the drought, I thought, as G and I jogged through the park. Majestic creatures, well, hardly creatures, but nearly; big and tall and strong and as permanent as time and space... but without water, as tiny as the smallest grain of sand.

The lawns are green, the aspect sweeping from, pretty much, any angle. Mum’s and dad’s had bought their children to play on the verdant velvet expanse. People read books in the shade. Some people sleep.

G states categorically that he doesn't need to have sex with a man to know he wouldn't like it.

Christian, if I was hot for guys, I reckon I would, why not? Who’s going to turn down sex? But, I'm just not.

It's just fear, I said. I was egging him on. You pussy

Give it to me any time, replied G.

The sky was a beautiful blue. The sun was warm on my back. I breathed hard in between my words.

Besides, what do you do with two boners? Don’t they, um… you know, get in the way?

What do you mean?

Well, with a chick it just all fits together, he said. You know, when I’m lying on top of Valentina…she’s smooth down there. I just kind of fit…

Like a glove, I offered.

Well, wouldn’t they be pushing against each other? Getting in the way? Keeping you a part?

No, that’s the best bit…

I can’t see it.

The shadows were dappled on the path. There was a group having wedding photos taken. I wondered about the normalcy of the appearance of the day. People gathering, as they had for a hundred years. It’s all perception, I thought.

Head over to those pushes in the middle of the park, I pointed to the beat and you’ll soon find out.

What?

Come on, I said, as I sprinted off in the direction of the MCG.

Are there guys having sex in those bushes? said G, as he caught up to me.

A-ha.

In the middle of the day?

Day, night and in between.

You guys...

You’re just jealous.

Do you?

I have, I said. But not for a long time now.

Why not, he smiled. You pussy?

Well, Manny, and other assorted boyfriends, I guess.

So if you headed over there now you'd get sucked off?

Probably.

So why don't you? G said, almost in amazement of turning down free sex. (That particular interpretation could have just been in my head, granted)

I've grown up. There are better ways of getting sex. There is better sex.

 

Sex on Tap

I went jogging with G, or do I call him Big Boy? Perhaps, it can be Big Boy G. He's my Greek mate, we've been friends for years.

As we jogged down by the Yarra - the times, in between, I wasn't getting called piss-weak for walking - he was telling me about his new girlfriend, Valentina - lawyer, power suit brigade.

She can't keep her hands off it, mate, said G. I've never known a bitch like her. She's amazing. Two girls jogged towards us dressed in black body suits. They looked like power-dykes to me. I wondered if I was too ghettoised?

G started to smile.

What?

I shouldn't have been thinking about Valentina and shit, in jogging shorts.

What?

He slid his hands in front of his shorts.

I looked down.

He slid his hands away. Pretty good, huh?

Jesus, G! I looked away.

Valentina chokes on it.

Bigger hands than mouth, then, huh?

Way bigger!

I looked back at him. Put it away.

I don't care. She's addicted to the peen - as G calls it - maaatttee, taking off all the wog boys he's ever known. She can't keep her hands off it.

It's okay for you to take off the wogs, I said. But it's not okay for me?

He grabbed my head and staged a mock pulling of my face into his groin.

Well, I wouldn't say derogatory things about your lot, he said. But you can. It's the same thing.

Our feet went thud, thud on the grass, together.

That's all you guys ever think about, I said. Ya Peen!

G sort of snorted a laugh. And like you guys fucken don't?

I don't know, it always seems to be more of a mutual thing with guys, I said. You boys just have this self-obsessed desperation that just seems to be about you, because you get turned down so much.

Get fucked! said G. You are so full of shit!

So full of shit that it is getting you hot under the collar.

This is - he emphasised the 'is', as if to confirm rather than tell - why most straight guys hate you guys, you know, said G. Because you can get sex whenever you want and then you just can't help but brag about it.

He increased his speed. But you sure can't fucken run.

I caught up to him, determinedly, it nearly killed me, but I wasn't going to show it. Unfortunately, my voice went up an octave. Can too!

Get fucked fag boy, said G, laughing between his gasps.

Don't call me fag boy. Big breathe! You wog cunt! I said, breathing hard. Same principle applies.

Come on. G slapped me playfully on the arse, with a full hand. We hoofed it up the Punt Road hill, in sink.

I could still feel his hand on my arse.

G got married when he was thirty and divorced when he was thirty five. For months, he walked around saying, Hi I'm G and I'm divorced. Hi I'm G and I'm divorced. I don't want to say that, he'd almost whine.

You've got to snap out of this, buddy.

You know Christian, he'd say. It was the one thing I never - emphasis on never - wanted to have to say. It was always something that was going to happen to someone else.

May be?

Mate, I'm the only divorced member of my whole family. The only one!

Then he went into a decline for the rest of the year. He shut himself away, cut himself off, completely. My mate Silvia pulled him out of it, with some old fashioned loving. She said he was hot sex; could go twice, very confidently. Always made her cum. They are not together now, the split was mutual, but it seems to have bought him back to normal.

"Nick (G's real name. Don't ask me why I call him G) has the most perfect penis," enthused Silvia, one night when she'd had too many chardies. 

What Day Is It?

Day seven. That's 210 cigarettes I haven't smoked - and $100 worth of pot. Who am I kidding, $150 worth.

The terrible depression of day 4 and 5 has stopped. That was hard to deal with, even if I have dealt with before, when I have given up smoking, previously. But, the intensity was much stronger this time, I’m sure. Or, it might just have been that I had Josh around to reflect my mood, rather than simply hiding away in my room unreflected, on my own. Whichever? I seem to be over it now. Yah!

Exercise has helped.

I rode over to Lottie's on Saturday and got another flat tyre, the back tyre, would you believe. I got a flat tyre on the front last weekend when I rode over to her place. Fuck, I was annoyed. I could barely hide it from her. She's been calling me ever since to see if I'm okay.

I so wanted to get into an exercise routine to coincide with quitting. I wanted to ride my bike every - second, to be realistic - day. But how can I when the universe is against me, so?

Lottie and I ate lunch together and then I chopped down some branches that were coming over into her place from the neighbours. She has such a thing about over-hanging branches now a days. I think she thinks they are going to slither threw her window, like snakes and get her in the night, if she doesn't keep on top of them.

It had rained a lot and my clothes were still damp when I caught the tram to come home. The aircon on the tram was freezing, so I got off at Barkers Road and just started walking. Fuck it, I need the exercise, I thought. When the rain started again, I thought, Great, you picked the only road around, to walk down, which has no public transport. So, I walked in the rain from Burke Road to the Kew tram terminus, on Church Street. It was fantastic, the day was warm, humid and it washed away all of my worries. A tram took me the short distance from the terminus to Victoria Gardens, where the driver declared that the tram was broken and that if we all got off and waited he’d go back to the terminus and get a replacement. So, I ended up walking home from Ikea. The beautiful Stuart drove past me in my old Mk2, but he didn't see me, thank goodness... the state I was in, it was preferable. I was soaked through by the time I got home, but it felt glorious. Freeing. Liberating. I think I exercised all my smoking demons… on that walk in the rain. So yesterday, I thought fuck it! Who needs a damn bike? I pulled on my running shoes and went jogging for an hour - which turned out to be forty minutes, but hey, who's counting. I can build up to it.

I met up with my mate G, I'll call him Big Boy, just by chance, who was jogging around East Melbourne, heading to the Yarra. He's big and solid and hairy and flirty with a great smile. He was just wearing green running shorts and nothing else; hairy chest, hairy stomach, hairy legs, in true Greek boy style. (What is it with me and Greek boys?)

"Hey Christian, you still want to look down my pants?" He pulled the front of his shorts out and flashed his killer smile.

"Just run, you dumb fuck," I said. "And stop making promises you are not going to keep."

"If you can catch me... you can... you can," running backwards, big smile. "You can suck it," he said. And then he flipped around and his big, thick, hairy, thighs took him sprinting away from me.

I ran hard, but had no chance of catching him.

A Little Tartan

"Here is an example of micro kilting. Bring in the model. G has agreed to model for us today."

G looks handsome standing in the doorway, like a... um... Scottish gladiator.

"Come stand here," I say.

G looks coy, but gorgeous, dressed in nothing but the micro pleated, dark green tartan and leather sandals.

"He's well built," says the buyer.

"Chest waxed, stomach waxed. Back of my hand to my face. "Back too, of course," I whisper. G blushes. "Legs left o'natural. Feel the difference. You can touch him."

"He's got nice legs," says the buyer.

"Do you like the way it drapes on the tops of his thighs?"

"Not much underneath..."

"No. see. Everything right there, with this length of hem. Hold still, G. Don't flinch. We're not going to..."

Like that?

"Yes. You can stroke it, if you want."

G flinches.

"I meant the material."

"Very impressive."

G smiles.

"Yes, he was chosen for that reason. Greek. Thick thighs. You see minimal strapping under neath."

"Jockstrap?"

"Yes."

"Is the kilt long enough, if he's working it?"

"That's kind of the point. It doesn't hurt to see a little flesh, if your customer is working it."