Straight Married Man ™

I recognize the tattoo straight away. A single line, as golden as the artist could make it with dark yellow ink and subtle white shading, almost completely covered by his wedding band. I keep on smiling while I take his credit card and discreetly look at his name while I charge him for two movie tickets. The last time I saw this tattoo, it was on a tightly cropped dick pic, before I deleted our conversation on Sniffies.

He knows what I look like, of course. I’m sure he came multiple times looking at my pics, locked in his bathroom, pretending to shave. I’m also sure that if he wasn’t accompanied by who I assume is his gorgeous wife—tousled blond pixie cut, tan cashmere sweater, so far from our usual crowd she could be Scandinavian—he would have turned around and left the cinema the minute he recognized me.

He takes his card back, giving me the blankest look he can muster. An impish part of me wants to have fun, but I’m not in the business of outing people. I might nudge them a bit if they need a little encouragement, but that’s as far as I go.

“I’m sorry,” I say, looking at his beautiful wife, possibly sending cold sweats down his spine. “I forgot to ask if you wanted any popcorn.”

“We’re good,” she answers with a smile. “Unless you need anything, Dylan?”

“I’m good,” he says, already turning away.

“Enjoy the movie. Carey Mulligan is fantastic.”

I’m counting the till, arranging stacks of ones so they face the same direction, when the door separating the lobby from the theater opens with a light squeak of its hinges. I look up to find Straight Married Man ^TM standing in front of me. Tall and handsome in a nondescript type of way, I can see how charming he’d be if he wanted to. He probably sells cars. He’d probably say he’s fit. He has, actually, and well, either that was true at some point and he hasn’t updated his vocabulary, or we just don’t have the same definition.

“I guess my wife would like a popcorn after all.”

“Can you guess what size she wants?” I ask with a smile.

I wish I could stop flirting, but I remember the dick pics. His sweet but horny messages before his pathological need for secrecy annoyed me enough to block him. We’re also two weeks from the due date and I’m so angsty I could fuck a tree.

I shake my head to push the thought away and concentrate on filling a large paper bag, trying to avoid the blackened kernels. I actually had to drive to the maternity this morning for a non-stress test and barely made it back in time to open the cinema, in such a hurry I think I burned the popcorn.

“What gave it away?” he suddenly asks as I’m pouring hot butter into the bag.

“What do you mean?”

He looks around before saying, “You know what.”

Yeah, no. “I just had… an inkling. Maybe something from a pic, I can’t remember. That’s seven dollars, Dylan.”

“We should meet up and jerk it, man. You know I’ve been looking for a bro-type situation.”

“Yeah?” I hand him his change back. “Then step to the side and put your hand down my pants.”

I get hard as the words come out. My dick gets stuck under the side of my briefs. Hopefully he’ll rearrange it for me. He looks at me, at the door, at me again, and just as I think he’s about to disappear back into the theater, he takes a quick step to the side, around the popcorn machine.

I do the same. Anyone can walk in from the street or out from the theater, but he doesn’t know that it happens so rarely that I’ve received blowjobs mid-movie, right there behind the counter.

He reaches around with his free hand and grabs my dick through my pants. I can see the outline of his dick pushing against his jeans.

“Inside.”

He slips his hand beneath my waistband and fully grabs me, running his thumb over the tip, spreading precum across it. I hope he’s not going to use this hand for the popcorn. I also hope his hand still smells like my dick when he locks himself in the bathroom later to jerk off.

Two days later I’m standing in his kitchen, looking at a finger painting held to the fridge by alphabet magnets, while Dylan gets me a glass of water I didn’t ask for. Purple handprints, a yellow smear that might be a sun. THEO, 2, written in the corner in an adult’s careful hand. Drawings cover postcards from Positano and Valparaiso, beautiful architecture and blue seas half-buried under attempts at spirals. Dylan’s ass looks better than anticipated.

The house is beautiful and completely overrun. Wooden toys are colonizing the living room floor, inch by inch, animal by animal. I can tell an attempt at fighting back has taken place. The high chair is tucked in a corner, tray up, recently wiped. Little colorful books are neatly stacked on the marble coffee table, next to unopened issues of The New Yorker. I can’t look at this anymore.

I’m not sure what made him change his mind. Maybe my smell lingering on his hands. Maybe the need to fuck someone else. Maybe he just needs a break, too.

He hands me the glass and closes the refrigerator with an easy shove of his shoulder.

“You do this often?” I ask, taking a sip of cold water.

“No. First time I’ve had someone over.” He leans against the counter. He’s spreading his legs just enough for me to see his bulge. He’s probably tightening his abs, trying not to stretch his Ralph Lauren polo.

“No?”

“No. Wife rarely travels. Thank God for daycare.”

“No affairs?”

“Here and there. I don’t like it when it gets messy. Women…” He lets the sentence drop. He probably fucked his secretary and lived to regret it.

“I’ll swallow, don’t worry.”

He laughs, sort of, like he’s texting the syllables. “Yeah. The wife doesn’t really do the job.”

I should leave. I want to feel Jack against me, I want him to grab me in the hallway like he does and push me on the couch laughing. I guess Dylan will have to do.

“Let me see your cock,” he says.

I put the glass down and lower my pants below my balls. My dick flops out, not even halfway hard. He follows suit, probably waiting for my mouth to drop, then grabs me by the waistband to bring me close enough that our dicks touch.

We stand there for a while as he plays with our dicks. He tries to pull my foreskin around his dick, but just pinches me. He slowly becomes hard against me. It’s pleasant. If only we weren’t standing in front of small jars of homemade puréed carrots.

“Let me see that pussy,” he says, suddenly grabbing my ass.

“No.”

I’m definitely not bending over and spreading my cheeks for him. I finally get hard, thinking back to the last time I really did that, offering my body to Chase, my anticipation and pleasure stronger than whatever remains of my shame. How G and JD took turns loving me while Antoine sucked me, feeling their thrusts through me. Yeah, no. Not doing that.

“Come on,” he insists. “The wife—”

“I get the gist, yeah. Maybe she’s saying the same thing about you.”

“Bro.”

“I’m just saying. But if you want to suck my dick, go ahead. I know you want to.”

“Come on, bro. I’ll fuck you good.”

I knew I never should’ve answered his messages. G’s right. Straight guys, DLs, he doesn’t even acknowledge them. He wants men to like his cock openly. He’s better than me. I drop my principles like my pants, indiscriminately and far too often. This time I pull them back up.

“I’m gonna head out.”

He looks genuinely confused, then a little panicked, glancing at the clock like daycare pickup might already be a problem. “Wait—did I—”

“You’re good. I’m just not feeling it.” I finish the water and put the glass in his sink, next to a sticky sippy cup. “Hope you like Wallis Island, by the way.”

“What?”

“The movie.”

“Oh. The wife loved it. I guess that’s what matters.”

I hear his car pull up in the driveway, the familiar cut of the engine, the patio door I keep meaning to fix bouncing against the frame. I’m in the kitchen making tea I don’t really want, just because it’s 5 p.m. and I need something to do. He walks in carrying a shipping box.

“Hey daddy,” he says, and something in my chest loosens.

“Hey gorgeous.”

“Bobbie order arrived,” he says, shaking the box, beaming. “We’re ready to feed the beast.”

He sets the box on the counter and comes up behind me while the kettle heats, one arm around my waist, his hand going straight for my crotch the way it always does when I’m cooking. Some things don’t change. He kisses the back of my neck.

“Did you have a good day?”

I think about Dylan’s kitchen, the drawings G can’t wait to display on our fridge.

“Better now. You?”

“Good, except for this boner that won’t go away,” he says with a grin. He rubs his crotch against me. I get hard the second I feel him against my ass.

I lean over the counter, drop my pants to my knees, and spread my cheeks for him.

Next week, on The Sexistentialist: a week-end in DC turns the temperature way up.