Sunday Morning Questions: Sixteen Candles Edition

It's true: I am officially another year older today. Whether I'm wiser has yet to be seen.

At an impromptu gathering of friends the other night, I received this birthday card:

A 'Hello! My name is...' card featuring the scrawled words Ima Tramp about sums it up, doesn't it? However, you'd think that a tramp would've at least gotten his birthday spankings by now . . . and my butt is still waiting for that.

I'm still accepting submissions (so to speak) for the Reader Ass feature—we'll be having a couple of them later this week. If you're not averse to showing off your butts for thousands of guys to see, click the link above, follow the instructions and share your photos of your ass with the world! If you'd like to share your butt with me . . . well, it's cold and snowy where I am, but my sheets are flannel and you're more than welcome.

As is our Sunday custom, I'm rounding up responses to questions I've been answering on formspring.me, the service that allows you to ask anonymous question of your friends without having to feel like a fool for asking. I'll answer just about anything that's not super-repetitive or super-silly, so if you're looking for advice, need an ear, or are just plain curious about something let 'er rip.


My question is: What is your take on religion?
I'm not a fan of organized religion, quite honestly. At its worst, it tends to be used as a tool of oppression and an excuse for ignorance and inaction.

I do like the little ideals that religion is supposed at its core to hold true: kindness to each other, belief that the union of people can produce all manner of good out of the reach of any single individual, and of providing help to the needy. Those can be appreciated by even the most atheistic soul.


Which writers inspire you? You remind me of a pornographic of Bill Bryson (that is a compliment by the way)
Thank you. I'm not familiar with Bill Bryson, and had to Google him.

I've listed some of my favorite writers before—they include a bunch of Victorian novelists, twentieth-century satirists and humorists, and the odd speculative fiction novelist who looks at our world and sees vastly different universes that shed light upon it. I don't really model my writing style on anyone's, however. It's a shaggy mutt of its own creation.


Ever done coke off an erect penis?
I've never done coke, so no.


When you masturbate while alone, are your major fantasys about being on the top or bottom? What is the fantasy line that gets you off the hardest?
I have fantasized about both, but usually my fantasies tend to be about me topping. When I am in a rare bottomy mood, I'll jerk off thinking about taking it.


Are you a size queen? If so, what's too small?
Not really. Dick size is not at the top of my list of things to look for when I'm cruising for sex.

I have been turned off by a couple of guys who had mere nubbins, though--but I think it was because they weren't honest with me and had sold themselves as six- to eight-inchers.


Would you prefer the lights on or off during sex?
I prefer the lights off. I like to be able to see what I'm aiming for, in a sense, but I find that dim lighting contributes more to my mood and makes me feel less self-conscious.


What's the one thing you would do over again? (and you can't say 'nothing', that's not an option)
When it comes to sex, there's a lot of stuff I'd be happy to do again, and only a handful of things I wouldn't repeat.

My philosophy is that I'll give almost anything a go. Letting fear hold one back from enjoyment is silly and limiting.


Just saw that you're a Doctor Who fan. Do you have a favorite companion of the Doctor's? Who is it? He or she can be from the new or old series. Mine is Martha, mostly b/c that was the 1st season I watched, so Freema & David both have a place in my heart.
I love Martha a lot--better than Rose Tyler, truth be told--but my favorite New Who companion is probably Donna Noble. I'm also a Rory fan. If River Song counted as a full-fledged companion, she would probably be my top choice.

Of the Old Who companions, I most like Sarah Jane Smith and Peri Brown. Although Leela kicked butt.


How many Christmas presents did you return this year?
Absolutely none. I don't think I've ever returned a Christmas gift.


Who has the better English department, U Conn or U Mich/Ann Arbor?
You ask almost as if you think I have a personal reason for knowing the answers. I'm not really aware of how good U-Conn's departments are, but U-M has a very good department, if you're thinking of applying.


If you found out that you were positive, would you stop fucking guys bareback?
When I meet someone for sex, my partner's serostatus is always a part of the negotiation process, regardless of my own HIV status.

Reader Asses: #1

Monday I asked for ass. Your asses. And hoo, boy, did I ever get an avalanche of ass in my mailbox. Beautiful asses, too, you sent me of yourselves. It's the best February a guy could have.

Because today I need to go outdoors and dig out my house from what looks like about a foot of snow, I'm going to share some of those asses with you. I'm taking them roughly in the order in which I received them, so if you sent yours in and don't see it today, don't worry. You're coming.

I have got readers with great butts, don't I? Let them know how they're appreciated, in the comments.

Buck Wild

My good friend and frequent commenter Buck Wild was the first to respond with these salacious pics that made my own dick twitch. That's quite a furry butt, isn't it? Buck's in New York City and encourages guys to email him, if they like what they see.


Jack

Jack doesn't bottom—thus the Post-It notes on his hot cheeks. Of course, if I saw that hairy hole, a couple of Post-It notes wouldn't stand in my way. They're meant to be ripped off, right?

Horny Cub

Horny Cub, on the other hand, does bottom. And is anxious to bottom, judging by the fingers spreading his ass cheeks. Nothing is a more beautiful sight to a horny top man.


Ben

Ben is from London. And I've got to tell you, the sight of his beautiful butt framed by the lines of that jock is really making my mouth water. There is nothing hotter to me than a guy with his face in the pillows, butt-up, wearing a jock strap.


Art

Art has one of those beautiful asses into which I'd love to bury my face—round, hairy, and receptive. I love how willingly he presents it, too. I envy the man who got to take this photo. Art also maintains his own blog, which you might consider adding to your daily reading list. It can be found at themeaningofart.blogspot.com .


That's all the reader ass for today—I'm heading out to shovel. I'm still looking for more asses to share in future special editions! If you've got an ass—and I'm pretty sure you do—send me a photograph of it (or heck, a drawing or an oil painting, if you're artistic) for thousands of viewers to see. Check out the details of what I'm looking for in this entry.

Keep warm, my friends.

Jockeys

My father is an old man who seems to exist solely on a diet of refined sugar and protein. It’s difficult to keep an eye on his diet from so far away, but it seems to me that whenever I visit home, he’s got a refrigerator stocked full of big haunches of roasted meats he’s purchased at the local supermarket, from which he slices little pieces until over the course of way too long he finally consumes the whole thing.

I’ll pull open the door and there’ll be a huge old ham, a roast turkey roughly the size of the one that Mr. Scrooge fed to the Cratchits, and a hulking lump of beef, sawed away on one side. Then there’ll be the sugars. Twinkies. Ho-Hos. Little Debbies of every flavor. Archway cookies—the soft kind. Tubes of Pillsbury dough that can be sliced and baked at a moment’s notice. His entire home office is a candy store, basically. Half of the shelves are devoted to actually books, while the rest exist to hold the bags of candies that he munches on at whim. To be fair, the man is in great health for his age, and is much thinner than I. My teeth, on the other hand, are in better shape.

It was a few years back, when I was visiting my dad in Virginia and had a Tootsie Roll jones that I knew could be fixed with a quick scan of his office bookshelves, that I discovered his stash of porn. Most people to whom I tell this story recoil at this point. They simply can’t imagine confronting evidence of their parents’ sex life, whether it’s porn or condoms or a vibrator spied while snooping in a cupboard. I really don’t care, though. In fact, I thought to myself as I leafed through the material to see what he had, my reaction was more along the lines of wanting to high-five him and crow, Good on you, you seventy-something-year-old dawg! The only thing that could’ve made me happier for him was if I’d found some actual signs of involvement with someone other than Miss Rosie Palms, if you know what I mean. And I’m pretty sure you do.

Apparently my dad is now into women with enormous jugs. At least, that’s what I’m guessing from the abundance of magazines and calendars featuring porn babes with mammaries that weren’t merely ample, but that were so oversized that it made my back hurt just to look at them. I confess to a little surprise, since my mother’s figure was lithe and boyish—in other words, she was a beautiful Audrey Hepburn look-alike in her youth, but fairly flat-chested.

What surprised me most, though, was that my dad actually had porn. Hidden away, no less, though not very well. Because when I was growing up, that simply wasn’t the case. Oh, I would’ve known if he had. When I visited the houses of friends, starting in about fourth grade or so, I was a master of sniffing out their dads’ porn; I didn’t even need a dowsing rod. We’d wait until the coast was clear, and then I’d lead my innocent friend into his dad’s bedroom and produce magazines from under his bed, or at the back of his closet, in a small box tucked behind the shoes. Or maybe I’d lift up the mattress and pull out a handful of dirty photographs, carefully hidden away.

The magazines were usually nothing racier than a Hustler or a Penthouse, though in a couple of instances we discovered some harder-core materials and even once a photo magazine with a definite bisexual angle, which had to be an eye-opener for my friend. The two of us would look over his parent’s porn for a little bit, wide-eyed and silent, barely making any more movement than the rapid darting of our eyes and the occasional flick of a tongue over our lips. Then we’d stuff the magazines back into their hiding places and not speak of them until we looked for them again the next time. My friends were usually too timid to hunt for the stuff themselves. I offered myself up in the role of scapegoat, though I knew I was more of an instigator, a catalyst, whose role was to put the sexually-charged sessions into motion.

Some things never change, right?

My father, though, didn’t buy dirty magazines. My parents were open about sex, had a lot of it together, and found no need to hide it from me when I was growing up. They had sex manuals in abundance, but I didn’t have to hunt to find them. They started handing them over to me to read at the age of nine or ten or so, and would check in periodically to see if I had any questions. In that brief window of time in which art films and pornography mingled, they’d take a night out and head down to the little foreign film theater to see I Am Curious (Yellow) or Deep Throat. My parents did own two copies of Playboy, but they weren’t squirreled away in a secret hiding place. They were in the stack of magazines beneath the coffee table, mixed in with Time and Smithsonian and Southern Living. I’d been invited to look at them when they’d been added to the pile.

It was shit like this that made my parents seem like total hippies, to all my friends.

I knew the contents of those magazines intimately—both were from 1976. One featured the somewhat infamous interview with David Bowie in which he discussed his bisexuality. The other was the even more infamous issue with an interview with President Jimmy Carter, in which he confessed that he had lusted in his heart more than once.

I knew those magazines from cover to cover, at one point. One of the issues had a feature on sex in the movies, so I got to become familiar with a photo of Kris Kristofferson’s tiny nipples, and to become very acquainted with a glimpse of a tiny sliver of black dick in a shot from the film Mandingo. I read through all the crude cartoons, trying to decode from the slang what they might mean in the adult world of sex. I read through all the letters and articles, sucking them dry of any titillating sexual content they might have offered. About the only thing I didn’t become overly aroused by were the photos of the naked women, oddly enough. I didn’t begin to explore that side of my sexuality until my later teens.

But what I fixated upon most, in one of those two issues—I think it was the Jimmy Carter one—was a two-page spread from Jockey advertising its wide variety of underwear choices. The advertisement was simplicity itself. All it did was feature a grid of photographs of professional athletes modeling Jockey shorts. Some wore T-shirts or tank tops as well; others were shirtless. Try as I might, I cannot find the two-page ad anywhere on the net, though I have found a one-page version from the same campaign.

I cannot exaggerate how many times I masturbated over this Jockey shorts ad. It was the closest thing I had to gay porn for many, many years. I was sexually active by the time I first saw it, but the actual sex I was getting never stopped me from whacking off to it in the mornings before I left for school. Several times a week I’d wake up at six, shower and dress, grab something for breakfast and do the homework I’d neglected the night before over the cereal bowl. Then I’d have fifteen blissful minutes behind the coffee table, on the floor, with the magazine propped open to my two favorite pages. My little pants would have been unzipped and my shorts tugged down and around my nuts, my hand furiously working over my dick, while I gazed at those men in their Jockeys.

I loved their chests—muscular and bare, or covered with cotton that let tufts of hair peek out at the scooped neck. I loved their strong, thick legs, their nineteen-seventies ‘staches, the roundness of their shoulders and biceps. But most of all, I liked looking at the mounds inside those Jockeys and wondering that they’d be like, inside me. Soon enough I’d squirt, wipe it off, and run off to the bus still bearing that chlorine-like scent of my semen back then.

Fred Dryer looks pretty damned good, in the ad I found. But today I look at the ad and mostly cringe a little at the loud prints, the garish colors, the netted tank top, and especially the circus tent boxers poor Brad Park is forced to sport.

At the time, though, those men were pure masculinity to me. And I still grow nostalgic at the thought.

I Want Your Asses!

It's the last day of January. Tomorrow's February—notable not only for being the shortest month of the year, but for containing my natal day (next weekend, if you're looking to shower me with presents and spankings). And also, toward the end, for being the month I started this blog, a year ago.

I know! Time flies. So to celebrate, I want your asses. All of 'em. Pony up, boys. And what's more, I want to share your asses.

Well, yes. I want them in that way too. But for now, I want photos.

One of the bloggers I admire very much is the inestimable Mr. Gloryholejunkie, whose frank and ribald take on the cultures of sex and public sex are always fascinating and arousing reads. On his blog he has started a feature in which he has invited readers to send in photos of their dicks. He then shares them with his readership.

I know a good thing when I see one. I am blatantly borrowing Mr. Gloryholejunkie's idea and turning it around: I propose, on a periodic basis, to use my blog as a showcase for your glorious asses. All that you need do is send 'em to me. Photos, that is. Of your asses. Your beautiful, big, round asses. I want my email box overflowing with asses. I want it to smell like your asses when you're done shoving your asses in there. I want to be overwhelmed with ass. I want Yahoo to send me administrative mail telling me that my email box has too much ass in it.

If you'd like to participate—and you should—send an email to the address in the sidebar. Put the words 'MY ASS' somewhere in the subject line. And then give me the name you'd like me to use when I post them in my blog—or if you'd like to remain anonymous, tell me that, too.

Because yes, I'll be posting the names or handles you give me along with your asses, and a few appreciative comments about each. And so will the readers looking at them. Right, guys?

Q: My ass is too pimply/fat/skinny to appear in such an enticing and drool-worthy project.

A: No, it's not. All asses are welcome. Unkind comments on anyone's ass will not be tolerated.

Q: Do you want just my ass? Or my ass and my dick? Or my ass and my face? Do you want a shot of my hole? Or just my butt cheeks? 

A: The details are totally up to you. Share with my readers whatever you're comfortable sharing.

Q: In what formats should I submit my ass photos?

A: JPGs are nice. But I can work with most formats.

Q: What if I know of a pretty ass I want to show you, but it's not mine?

A: Nooooooo. I want to see and share your ass. Not some porn stars. Unless you are a porn star, of course. (Don't laugh. I have several porn star followers.)

Q: What if I want you to take the photos of my ass?

A: I am totally down for it. (Was there any doubt? Really?)

Please note: When you send in a photo or photos for the project, you are affirming that you are at least 18 years of age and that the photo or photos you are submitting may be published in the very special episodes in which I share your asses with the world.

Of course, if you just want to send me butt pics privately, you can do that too. But where's the fun in that?

I'm hoping we can celebrate my birthday with a good ol' round of ass. So SEND ME YOUR ASS. Get crackin'.

So to speak.

Sunday Morning Questions: The Home-Cooked Edition

The dinner: sliced pomelo, salad green, pan-seared salmon, and roasted asparagus. The chef: not me!

When I'm with my loved ones, I'm usually the cook of the house. I'm a fairly decent home chef who prefers to know what ingredients are going into his meals—which also means I have a tendency to bake things like bagels, breads, and cakes as well, or make my own yogurt and salsa, or to keep a constant supply of home-simmered black beans in the fridge. One isn't going to leave my table feeling like one's leaving the Top Chef set, by any means, but at least the meal will usually have been tasty, and largely from scratch.

Last night, however, Spencer decided he wanted to cook his first dinner for me, in my kitchen. He arrived home with an armful of groceries and very sweetly proceeded to use every baking dish, bowl, pan, cutting board, knife, and colander I own to make a dinner just for me. I had to step in and butcher the fish for him and place it in the pan because he's frightened of raw flesh (I know . . . my mind was overflowing with things to say there, too), and I did dishes all along the way because I didn't want to have to face a mound of them at the evening's end, but over the course of the two and a half hours we ate the various courses, I got to sit back and have them served. Just because someone wanted to take care of me.

It was a luxury. And very sweet.

It's Sunday, and you know what that means: I catch up on more of your questions from formspring.me, the service that allows you to ask me anonymous questions—whether they're advice, or a personal query, or something that's just on your mind. I'll answer anything that's not repetitive or invasive, so long as you remember one simple rule: just because it's anonymous doesn't give you license to be a dick to me. That's not too much to ask, is it?


How old were you when you realized your cock was turning out a lot bigger than average?
I was about seven and a half inches when I was 14. That would be when I glanced down between my legs while sucking dick in a marathon session at the park and realized that I was already longer than most of the grown men I was blowing, and bigger than anyone in my family as well.

At that age my dick was still a lot thinner, though. I didn't get to about my full size until I was sixteen.


Have you ever told someone you love him, but got the wrong answer back? What did he say?
I once knew a guy who was incredibly kind to me when my father was in the hospital for a series of operations. Not only did we have fairly intense sex, but he had a lot of good advice about my dad's health as well.

When my dad was released a couple of weeks later, I wrote my friend a letter thanking him for his kindness and telling him that I loved him for getting me through a bad time. I made clear that I meant a grateful, friendship kind of love. However, the letter apparently freaked him out so badly that he refused to talk to me ever again. When I ran across him three or four years later, he pretended not to know me.

It's a shame that the word 'love' is a burden to so many people, especially when it's offered in the spirit of admiration.


Did you read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan?
I did not. Why do you ask?


I take it you are a bi married guy - what's the secret to staying discreet and still playing safely and having fun?
Take me as you will. I think the secret to maintaining a relationship while playing with others is simply to be considerate of your primary partner. Sneaking around, missing family events or meals in the name of sex, lying sloppily--they're all going to make your life a misery.

Sex is recreational. In your list of priorities, treat it as such.


So your wife isn't the least bit suspicious about your activities? *not jinxing you*
This question makes a couple of assumptions, one of them being that any activities in which I indulge are dishonest, and therefore worthy of suspicion.

You know how the popular saying goes about what happens when you assume something.


Do you think people on twitter that you follow and that follow you back really pay attention to you or do you think they just follow to have followers?
I don't think there's any right or wrong way to use Twitter. There are some ways that are more obnoxious than others--using bots to spam people who mention a product you sell, for example, or trying to lure people into joining sex sites through provocative avatars while providing little commentary or content.

But people who follow merely for the hope of accumulating a lot of followers? They have every right to bolster their ego that way. I'm glad it doesn't take much to make them happy.


You've made some gamer references. What have you played, and what are you still into?
I am a huge World of Warcraft player, and have been for about five years. It's that game into which I've sunk more gaming time than any other. I have played a lot of consoles over the years, starting with the Atari 2600 I had in middle and high school and moving through various Nintendo products to the current day.

However, I haven't spent much time with console games in the last couple of years. I tend to find my attention span is suited more toward games I can play in short, satisfying bursts--Puzzle Quest 2, with which I am currently obsessed, is an example.

I'm also very fond of board and strategy games; Carcassonne is a favorite. I play it on my iPad a lot, along with Reiner Knizia's Medici and Ra.



my boyfriend is younger and very dominant and has fucked me over 3000 times over the years as this has gone on I've got more and more compliant and passive to the point he does what he wants no matter how humiliating do all bottoms go like this?
No, they don't. But there's nothing wrong with you or your relationship because you have.


Have you ever considered adapting your writings for publication, either in book form or on a forum like "Nifty Erotic Stories"?
I don't really believe that submitting my writings to Nifty is much of a step up in credibility, to be honest.

I have considered collecting entries into book form. However, there's a fundamental difference between journal entries and a book format; overcoming the challenge of how to adapt one into the other is what keeps me from pursuing it actively.


In retrospect, was your whoring around in your youth something that was good for you growing up, or was it overall impact your life in a negative way?
I really have little to say that's negative about my youthful experiences. My teenaged sluttiness helped me mature in ways that was far beyond most of my peers, and gave me a perspective into human behavior that I wouldn't have ordinarily experienced. It helped me get a rational and sentiment-free view of sex that's served me well.

In short, it made me the man I am today, and I wouldn't change that for the world.

I'm aware that some people look askance at my youthful exploits and prefer to see it in terms of 'abuse' or 'molestation.' I would never apply those words to any of my own experiences, however, and I resent it when other people attempt to impose that kind of narrative over my own.


So, have you tried cialis? Man, that stuff makes me sore - a noted side effect, but I think it has more to do with all the pounding you have to do with the hardon it gives you.. for 36 hours.
I tried Viagra once and didn't really notice a difference in erection persistence or strength. I am fortunate not to have problems in that area, so far. I haven't tried any other erection-related pharmaceuticals.

Open Forum Friday: Scars

I was an ugly kid.

Now, I’m not making any great claims for myself as an adult when it comes to my looks, but for the most part, I’m fairly content with how things have turned out. In my series of Earl memoirs lately, though, I’ve been talking about my early and mid-teens a lot, and I don’t want to leave readers with the impression I was a beautiful young twink. Nope. I was a painfully skinny kid whose ribs one could count beneath his skin. My hair was bright blond, but greasy and long enough to scrape my chin. I wore very thick horn-rimmed glasses. Because I was so tall—always a head above my classmates all the way from second grade through high school—I had a tendency to hunch my shoulders when I was among my peers. My clothes weren’t the best.

And oh, I felt the pain. Every crack about my greasy hair I took to heart. When a girl named Sonja told me I had ‘little bitty piggy eyes,’ I spent hours in the mirror widening my lids as far as they could go to see if I could minimize the effect. I internalized comments about my oily skin, my big nose, my lack of a chin, my skinniness, my total, unloveable ugliness. And I believed every word.

Sure, it was the nineteen-seventies. All kids were hideous during the nineteen-seventies. It’s as if we were all shooting for Leif Garrett and falling short somewhere around Danny Bonaduce. When I graduated high school, I underwent a transformation of sorts. I got contact lenses instead of glasses. I bought a new wardrobe. I cut my hair shorter. I took several strides away from that ugly kid I was in my teens.

Now, during all those years I kept hearing hurtful, ugly things about myself, men were giving me compliments that were quite the opposite. Earl himself used to say the nicest things about my eyes—how translucent and shifting were their colors, and how deep they seemed. Men loved my body and told me so, in profane detail while they fucked me. I had strangers on the streets cruising me, pawing me, taking me to their cars, even paying me. I discounted every single one of their compliments, stated or implied. The only things about my appearance I could hear and believe were those that hurt me to the core.

What's crazy is that these days, when I look back at photographs of me in college, I don't see any of those things I held true about my appearance. I see a bright-faced kid, smooth and pretty and young, with a smile that could light up a room. I was my own worst judge.

Last night I was sitting across from Spencer in a restaurant, having our first frank talk about his scars. Spencer has had specific areas of his body afflicted with patches of cysts, in the past. Surgery has removed them, but it’s left small areas of scarring behind. White traceries, so faint they’re difficult to see unless they’re pointed out. There’s a few on one arm, several on the outside of a leg, and one on his cheek that I can make out only in very bright light, up close. He told me about the visits to his doctor that started in his early teens, the injections, the therapies, the recuperations. He talked about the mortification he felt—that he feels—each morning in the mirror.

When I look at Spencer, I see his strong jaw, his beautiful bone structure. I don’t see scarring. I see a forehead that radiates strength and serenity, and comical eyebrows that with one quirk can make me burst into laughter. I see the dimples in his smile, and the cleft in his chin, and a handsome face that makes men and women alike turn their heads when he enters a room. He sees blemishes, and imperfections, and the spots where knife has met flesh. It’s not just the scars he dislikes about himself. I hold him against me when we fuck and feel his narrow hips and his flat stomach; he mumbles about an imaginary spare tire. I see beautiful brown eyes that sparkle with life; he sees big bloodshot dog eyes. Another telling behavior: he sneezes, says “Excuse me,” and then in the same breath but a different, booming voice retorts, “There’s no excuse for you!”

I asked him why he always follows up his ‘excuse mes’ with those words. He told me they were his father’s standard retort when he was a kid, and that the voice was his father’s as well.

I tried to express my feelings to him, last night, as we ate. “You are not your scars,” I told him. “You just aren’t. I don’t think anyone sees it. Not the way you do. You are not your imaginary extra weight. You aren't your miserable thirteen-year-old self.'”

“Well, that's how I see myself,” he retorted. “And it sickens me.”

“There is so much more to you than those things,” I told him. “It seems to me such heavy baggage to carry, the shame for something you can’t control or change. They doesn’t matter.”

But as we argued, I realized how stubborn he is. He can’t give up that vision of hideousness that never existed, not yet. And I’m not enough to change the way he sees himself. He made my heart ache. I have an instinct to fix things when I see people I love in trouble, and these invisible wounds run too deep to mend.

I know so many beautiful, extraordinary people who don’t believe in their own gifts. It seems as if they’re stuck in some time warp, seeing visions and hearing voices of people who no longer exist in their lives, saying things that no longer have any relevance. They hear whispers that they’re overweight, or ugly, or not good enough; they stare at their reflections and instead of handsome, capable men and women, they see ungainly, pimply teenagers.

I don’t exempt myself from any of my own accusations. I yesterday looked in the mirror and found myself tugging at the corners of my lids and murmuring, “Piggy eyes.”

So for today and the weekend I’m opening up the comments section to you guys. What childhood or teenaged slights have stuck with you throughout your life, whether or not they’re really who you are as an adult? And how have you overcome them, if you have? Why do you think we cling to the bad things we hear about ourselves, and ignore the good? I’m curious to see if we have any commonalities between us.

Failure

This is tough for me to write about: I failed last night.

I’d had a tough day. The winter days have really begun to grind me down and to make me feel housebound and logy. I’ve been feeling particularly anxious about my living situation, and feeling neither one place nor another. I’ve had an upswing in crazy associated with the blog—name-calling, diva fits, and outright rudeness—with which it’s been difficult to cope.

Over my first-world problems I’d managed to get myself into one of those fretting states of mind that I took into the bedroom with Spencer. I was tired, and cranky, and cliched as it sounds, had something of a headache. And to put it bluntly, it just wasn’t working for me.

Oh, it wasn’t the hydraulics that weren’t working. I don’t usually have an issue with that, knock wood. No, it was more the problem of me not being really into the moment. I was thinking more about the problems rattling around in my head than I was the beautiful boy between my legs, surrendering his butt to me. And he could tell. “We don’t have to fuck tonight, you know,” he at last muttered, somewhere down there.

And I thought to myself, Oh, fuck. It shows.

My head was even more crowded in the moments after. Nothing contributes more to feelings of pointlessness than having one’s sexual inadequacies highlighted during the act. I sighed, rolled onto my back, and breathed deeply as I tried to keep everything at bay.

As I lay there, fretting and mentally flagellating myself, it occurred to me that maybe I could do something other than thinking about myself. I did, after all, have a young man in my bed who had needs of his own. And if I wasn’t totally in the mood to use his hole, there were plenty of other things I could do.

So I did.

I lifted his head to mine and kissed him deeply. My right hand traveled over his broad chest, stroked his hairy stomach, squeezed his still-erect dick. When I pressed my lips to his nipples, my troubles began to recede from mind; by the time I had him groaning and writhing on the bed from scraping my teeth and tongue across those sensitive red buds, I’d more or less forgotten them completely.

I love to kiss Spencer’s body. I love the smell of him, the clean taste of his skin, the give of his stomach, the hardness of his hips. I love letting my lips trail from neck to navel, and of burying my face in his thick, spiky pubes. And I really love impaling my throat on his dick.

Spencer’s dick has a point to it; his head is more of a rounded triangle than a mushroom. The shaft grows gradually as my lips travel down, stretching them widest around the base. I can take all but the last half-inch without trouble. Struggling for that last tiny measurement, however, is half the fun.

Spencer gasps and moans as I suck him. This time is different from the other nights I’ve gone down on him, somehow. Usually I can pleasure him for long periods of time—and I do—but it’s pleasure for pleasure’s sake, not with a goal in mind. This time, though, he’s directing me in a way he hasn’t before. He’s thrusting inside my mouth deeper and deeper; his hand is holding the back of my neck to keep it still. My eyes water. I try to keep my throat open as his cock’s head invades it. He’s not a big pre-cummer for the most part, but now he’s dripping. I can taste it on the back of my tongue, stronger and saltier by the moment.

I was pretty sure this might be going somewhere we hadn’t gone before. I felt Spencer’s hand tapping lightly at the back of my neck as I picked up the pace slightly. It felt like the slightest of taps, as if he was asleep and dribbling a basketball in his dreams. I adjusted my lips and continued to move my mouth up and down his shaft. Sometimes my fingers would lightly stroke his hairy nuts. Sometimes I’d curl my thumb and forefinger around his hard meat and let the tight circle follow the path of my mouth.

Spencer’s breathing grew faster, shallower. I could see his stomach ripple with motion as he began to pant. The phantom tapping at the back of my head increased, and I moved with it, letting him direct the pace. I wanted to do this for him. I wanted him this way. And most of all, I wanted his seed in my mouth.

It came shortly after. “Oh my god,” he panted. “Oh my god.” He said the words over and over, like a mantra, or perhaps a prayer. Then his hips shot upward, nailing his dick deep in my throat as he shot his load. I received the sperm onto my tongue and kept my mouth on his meat until his spasms subsided, and then a moment more.

Only when he was completely relaxed did I withdraw and swallow the payload. It was strong in flavor, pungent, and slightly sweet. Most importantly, it was his essence, and I’d gotten it in my mouth. Finally.

“Thank you,” I said, easing myself to his side. I had a smile on my face, large and genuine, untouched by any of the day’s cares.

His voice was soft and distant. “Would you believe me if I told you that no one has ever sucked me off completely before?”

“I would,” I murmured back. “You told me no one had, the second day I knew you.”

“No one has,” he said, dreamily. “Until you. Just now.”

“I was there,” I reminded him.

And I was. I really had been there. Present. Willing. Thinking of nothing else but him, and his pleasure, and what he wanted.

Sometimes out of failure grow the seeds of success.