Opinionman
Jockstrap Fan
Ch 36: Stress management: the weight room
Skye skimmed through the other books in the pile, feeling the sinusoidal curve of emotions: one moment he felt like he could grasp whatever the book was about, the next he felt like everyone else must have had a better high school education than he had had, and something like despair overwhelmed him. Though not fully conscious of the attributes of that despair, he was vaguely aware that it wasn’t just based in his own sense of insecurity and lack of adequate preparation for college. It was only days later that he recognized and could name the other characteristic of despair: Anger. Anger at being cheated out of a good high school education; anger at the desperation of life on the Rez; even, oddly, anger that he himself now had a chance to escape that cycle merely because he knew how to wrestle another guy. These issues were to revisit him in the coming months.
He spent a good part of that Sunday looking through books, arranging some of the cheap notebooks he’d brought, and checking to see if his outdated laptop—a low-budget affair he’d managed to snag at a discount—even worked; it did, but it always felt to him like a car that was about to die.
Restless in mid-afternoon, he decided to hit the weight room. He stripped out of his jeans, shirt and boxer-briefs and stood for a moment, naked, in his room. Charlie had gone somewhere actually clothed, so Skye decided his clothes-hating roomie must be out for a while. Like any dude, he absent-mindedly tugged on his ballsac and, not surprisingly, he felt the pleasure and his cock started to respond.
“Oh fuck!” he said through gritted teeth as the hefty beast between his legs started to thicken. “Not now. Fuck.” His penis paid no attention to his protest but continued to grow. “I’m not doing this now! I need the energy for the weight room. Stop it!” He mockingly yelled at his penis and gave it a slap, which did nothing to inhibit its tumescence; in fact, it had the opposite effect.
In the throes of desire, he suddenly accessed what he had begun to understand as some kind of ancestral power and exerted all his self-discipline and grabbed his old fading white/gray brief and yanked it on. Of course, his erection jutted obscenely from the pouch, tenting the brief impressively. But Skye continued dressing and his penis eventually gave up the battle and started to soften. “Fuck” grumbled the college boy. “It’s just like what’s-his-name said last week: crazy design.” Still, like any guy, he had enjoyed the lust, felt proud of his testosterone levels, and admired his body briefly in the mirror.
“Come on, idiot,”he said to himself as he reached for his socks and shoes. “One step at a time, you horn-dog.” At that moment, he realized he’d relied on habit by reaching for his old brief; he’d always worn that to workout in. But he found himself wishing he had an extra jockstrap to wear to the weight room. It dawned on him he could stop off in the locker room and pick up his own, but he didn’t want to lose momentum, and so he grabbed an old towel he’d brought to college, left his room, and continued straight to the weight room.
He had seen the weight room on the tour he’d had as a senior in high school and was in awe. Compared to his homemade system of weights—the poles stuck in Qwik-Dry cement as a substitute weight bar—this was like working in some fairy tale palace: ergonomic machines, a huge variety of different-sized hand weights, mats, stretch bands, endless stairs, etc. He felt a little self-conscious; he wasn’t sure how to use some of the machines, so he thought he’d just do free weights. At least he knew how to use those, but he took the opportunity to look sidelong at the other guys on the machines to see how they worked.
Over the next hour, he lifted barbells and hand weights, did push-ups and sit-ups, figured out the endless stair, and concluded by having a long stretch on the mat. At that point, stress over academics was the furthest thing from his mind. Again, with that sense he attributed to his ancestors, he perceived that certain guys were glancing at him and letting their looks linger just a moment longer than seemed normal. In a flash, a huge Leviathan of anger welled up out of nowhere, and he recognized it as the same response he got when he himself or his friends from the Rez were treated as outsiders due to their race. The next moment, he realized he hadn’t experienced one iota of that all-too-familiar feeling in the past week; it had been assuaged by all the support and care he’d experienced from his teammates and dormmates. And the next moment after that, he realized he might have been overreacting. He tried his best to “step back”and see with non-prejudiced eyes what was really going on. It took only a second to see that the guys there were looking—clandestinely, it’s true—admiringly at him. As he observed them observing him, he realized they were appreciating his muscled body and, perhaps more startling, a few of them openly admired the bulge in his gym shorts. He was so used to his own cock and balls that he forgot that he had a far more impressive bulge than most guys. If he hadn’t had the locker room and dorm experiences to confirm that his equipment was far above average, he might have had a very different reaction to their looks. As it was, all the anger melted away—all this in the space of about five seconds.
He decided he’d done enough and was about to leave when another guy said, “Hey, buddy. You look like you know your way around a weight room. I haven’t seen you here before.”
Skye looked him squarely, the slightest defiance still lingering from his previous maelstrom of emotions. But he was beginning to recognize this defensiveness, and to master it, so he simply said quietly, “Yeah, I haven’t been here before.”
“You a freshman?” as the other student. “Wrestler?”
“Yup. Good eye,” and Sky smiled, unconsciously doing his best to imitate Kirk. He appraised the fellow talking to him: well over 6 feet, probably 220 lbs himself, muscled, with dark olive skin, hair almost as black as Skye’s and hazelish eyes of an indistinct color. He flashed a smile himself, easily the match of Kirk’s. “You?” continued Skye.
“I’m a junior. I wrestled here for one season, but then had to stop. So I just keep up by weight training.”
“Yeah, that’s obvious,” said Skye, immediately regretting his brazenness.
“Thanks, man,” smiled the other fellow. “I’m Philip.” He stuck out his thick fleshy hand.
“Skye,” answered the freshman. There was a pause.
“You finished working out?” asked Philip.
“Yep. Was just gonna leave.
“Yeah, I’m done too, but I was gonna go sit in the sauna for a bit to relax.” The implied invitation floated in the air, unstated, but obvious. Another pause.
“Oh, yeah?” responded Skye non-commitally.
“Yeah.” A third pause. A little discomfort.
“Um,” stumbled Skye, “they have a sauna here?”
“Yup. And a steam room. Feels great after a workout.”
“Oh, well,… where’s that, off the locker room?”
“It’s actually inside the locker room. Guys only, you know.”
“Huh,” said Skye again. “Well, I guess you’ll feel relaxed after that.”
“Uh huh,” said Philip. He looked Skye in the eye. The freshman felt unsure about what to do, and he let his fears get the better of him. “Sounds good. Have a good time. Nice to meet you.” He turned away, berating himself for what he thought might be rude behavior due to shyness.
He walked away and didn’t look back to see Philip following him with his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and heading to the locker room.
As Skye got to the door of the weight room, he paused. First, he felt like a moron for not bringing a change of clothes; he’d been in such a hurry and was engaged with the struggle with his erection that he hadn’t even thought of it. Second, he felt he’d been a little abrupt with Philip, who was, after all, merely being friendly and informative. Third, he was surprised at the soreness creeping into some of his muscles; despite intense workouts on the team, they had not done any weight training, and so those muscles were clamoring for attention. Like so many other moments in the past week, he found himself on the move without necessarily willing himself to. He turned back, crossed the weight room, and entered the locker room.
Skye skimmed through the other books in the pile, feeling the sinusoidal curve of emotions: one moment he felt like he could grasp whatever the book was about, the next he felt like everyone else must have had a better high school education than he had had, and something like despair overwhelmed him. Though not fully conscious of the attributes of that despair, he was vaguely aware that it wasn’t just based in his own sense of insecurity and lack of adequate preparation for college. It was only days later that he recognized and could name the other characteristic of despair: Anger. Anger at being cheated out of a good high school education; anger at the desperation of life on the Rez; even, oddly, anger that he himself now had a chance to escape that cycle merely because he knew how to wrestle another guy. These issues were to revisit him in the coming months.
He spent a good part of that Sunday looking through books, arranging some of the cheap notebooks he’d brought, and checking to see if his outdated laptop—a low-budget affair he’d managed to snag at a discount—even worked; it did, but it always felt to him like a car that was about to die.
Restless in mid-afternoon, he decided to hit the weight room. He stripped out of his jeans, shirt and boxer-briefs and stood for a moment, naked, in his room. Charlie had gone somewhere actually clothed, so Skye decided his clothes-hating roomie must be out for a while. Like any dude, he absent-mindedly tugged on his ballsac and, not surprisingly, he felt the pleasure and his cock started to respond.
“Oh fuck!” he said through gritted teeth as the hefty beast between his legs started to thicken. “Not now. Fuck.” His penis paid no attention to his protest but continued to grow. “I’m not doing this now! I need the energy for the weight room. Stop it!” He mockingly yelled at his penis and gave it a slap, which did nothing to inhibit its tumescence; in fact, it had the opposite effect.
In the throes of desire, he suddenly accessed what he had begun to understand as some kind of ancestral power and exerted all his self-discipline and grabbed his old fading white/gray brief and yanked it on. Of course, his erection jutted obscenely from the pouch, tenting the brief impressively. But Skye continued dressing and his penis eventually gave up the battle and started to soften. “Fuck” grumbled the college boy. “It’s just like what’s-his-name said last week: crazy design.” Still, like any guy, he had enjoyed the lust, felt proud of his testosterone levels, and admired his body briefly in the mirror.
“Come on, idiot,”he said to himself as he reached for his socks and shoes. “One step at a time, you horn-dog.” At that moment, he realized he’d relied on habit by reaching for his old brief; he’d always worn that to workout in. But he found himself wishing he had an extra jockstrap to wear to the weight room. It dawned on him he could stop off in the locker room and pick up his own, but he didn’t want to lose momentum, and so he grabbed an old towel he’d brought to college, left his room, and continued straight to the weight room.
He had seen the weight room on the tour he’d had as a senior in high school and was in awe. Compared to his homemade system of weights—the poles stuck in Qwik-Dry cement as a substitute weight bar—this was like working in some fairy tale palace: ergonomic machines, a huge variety of different-sized hand weights, mats, stretch bands, endless stairs, etc. He felt a little self-conscious; he wasn’t sure how to use some of the machines, so he thought he’d just do free weights. At least he knew how to use those, but he took the opportunity to look sidelong at the other guys on the machines to see how they worked.
Over the next hour, he lifted barbells and hand weights, did push-ups and sit-ups, figured out the endless stair, and concluded by having a long stretch on the mat. At that point, stress over academics was the furthest thing from his mind. Again, with that sense he attributed to his ancestors, he perceived that certain guys were glancing at him and letting their looks linger just a moment longer than seemed normal. In a flash, a huge Leviathan of anger welled up out of nowhere, and he recognized it as the same response he got when he himself or his friends from the Rez were treated as outsiders due to their race. The next moment, he realized he hadn’t experienced one iota of that all-too-familiar feeling in the past week; it had been assuaged by all the support and care he’d experienced from his teammates and dormmates. And the next moment after that, he realized he might have been overreacting. He tried his best to “step back”and see with non-prejudiced eyes what was really going on. It took only a second to see that the guys there were looking—clandestinely, it’s true—admiringly at him. As he observed them observing him, he realized they were appreciating his muscled body and, perhaps more startling, a few of them openly admired the bulge in his gym shorts. He was so used to his own cock and balls that he forgot that he had a far more impressive bulge than most guys. If he hadn’t had the locker room and dorm experiences to confirm that his equipment was far above average, he might have had a very different reaction to their looks. As it was, all the anger melted away—all this in the space of about five seconds.
He decided he’d done enough and was about to leave when another guy said, “Hey, buddy. You look like you know your way around a weight room. I haven’t seen you here before.”
Skye looked him squarely, the slightest defiance still lingering from his previous maelstrom of emotions. But he was beginning to recognize this defensiveness, and to master it, so he simply said quietly, “Yeah, I haven’t been here before.”
“You a freshman?” as the other student. “Wrestler?”
“Yup. Good eye,” and Sky smiled, unconsciously doing his best to imitate Kirk. He appraised the fellow talking to him: well over 6 feet, probably 220 lbs himself, muscled, with dark olive skin, hair almost as black as Skye’s and hazelish eyes of an indistinct color. He flashed a smile himself, easily the match of Kirk’s. “You?” continued Skye.
“I’m a junior. I wrestled here for one season, but then had to stop. So I just keep up by weight training.”
“Yeah, that’s obvious,” said Skye, immediately regretting his brazenness.
“Thanks, man,” smiled the other fellow. “I’m Philip.” He stuck out his thick fleshy hand.
“Skye,” answered the freshman. There was a pause.
“You finished working out?” asked Philip.
“Yep. Was just gonna leave.
“Yeah, I’m done too, but I was gonna go sit in the sauna for a bit to relax.” The implied invitation floated in the air, unstated, but obvious. Another pause.
“Oh, yeah?” responded Skye non-commitally.
“Yeah.” A third pause. A little discomfort.
“Um,” stumbled Skye, “they have a sauna here?”
“Yup. And a steam room. Feels great after a workout.”
“Oh, well,… where’s that, off the locker room?”
“It’s actually inside the locker room. Guys only, you know.”
“Huh,” said Skye again. “Well, I guess you’ll feel relaxed after that.”
“Uh huh,” said Philip. He looked Skye in the eye. The freshman felt unsure about what to do, and he let his fears get the better of him. “Sounds good. Have a good time. Nice to meet you.” He turned away, berating himself for what he thought might be rude behavior due to shyness.
He walked away and didn’t look back to see Philip following him with his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and heading to the locker room.
As Skye got to the door of the weight room, he paused. First, he felt like a moron for not bringing a change of clothes; he’d been in such a hurry and was engaged with the struggle with his erection that he hadn’t even thought of it. Second, he felt he’d been a little abrupt with Philip, who was, after all, merely being friendly and informative. Third, he was surprised at the soreness creeping into some of his muscles; despite intense workouts on the team, they had not done any weight training, and so those muscles were clamoring for attention. Like so many other moments in the past week, he found himself on the move without necessarily willing himself to. He turned back, crossed the weight room, and entered the locker room.