The Handsomest Man in Detroit

(This post, the first of two, I originally wrote in my journal about a decade ago. I went searching for it today when I was thinking about its subject. It's interesting how my attitudes about certain things discussed here, such as my feelings about my own attractiveness, have changed in the interim.)



He’s way out of my league. Men I already consider out of my league, would think him way out of theirs. His name is Angelo, but I call him The Handsomest Man in Detroit.

The Handsomest Man in Detroit lives up to his title. He’s fortunate to possess the blond, affable movie star good looks of Robert Redford in his younger days. When he smiles, his eyes sparkle and his lips frame perfect, even, white teeth. His cropped dark blond hair always looks as if he’s just run a hand through it. He’s much shorter than I, no more than five foot six or seven, but his compactness suits him; he’s concentrated sex appeal—bite-sized eye candy. And he likes me.

Beautiful people either intimidate or scare the shit out of me, quite honestly; my lifelong experience has been that like attracts like. In congregations where pretty people gravitate to each other’s shining lights, I’m shunted to the sidelines like the bastard love child of Shrek and Buddy Hackett, feeling fit only to spend the remainder of my days high in the towers of Notre Dame, filing away the hunchback’s corns.

Yet the Handsomest Man in Detroit manages never to make me feel as if I’m his community service project, nor does he contrast the muscular flawlessness of his body to the pale imperfections of my own. Nor do I spend much time emailing him or phoning him to tell him how hot he is; I’ve sensed that other men have turned him off with their groveling. I bide my time and ignore him. Then every two or three weeks he’ll simply call me and in his low, growling voice, ask, “Are you free tonight?”

I was free Monday. “I’m going to leave the back door unlocked for you,” he said. “I’m heading home from the gym now, and might still be showering up when you get there. Just come on in and get comfortable.”

When I arrived a half hour later, I parked my truck in his driveway. Audible through one of the house’s back windows was the percussion of splashing water against a tub floor, accompanied the sounds of humming; through the screen came the scents of steam and soap. The back door was cracked open, as promised. I stepped through and into his laundry room, where on the floor lay a pair of gym shoes, battered, worn, and still warm, as if kicked off when he’d entered the house. Dark blue sweat shorts with a legend of University of Michigan lay draped over the short flight of stairs up to his living room; a few feet further away, a discarded gray jockstrap, its edges worn and frayed, decorated the carpet.

Angelo still sang to himself when I rapped at the bathroom door. I could see the hazy outline of his body behind the transparent shower curtain, and his hands as they reached behind to clean himself out. “Hey buddy!” he said. I felt warmed by the happiness in his voice. “Why don’t you go to the bedroom and get comfortable? Wait,” he added. The curtain slid back with a hiss of the metallic curtain rings. “Whatcha wearing?” He took in my oversized camouflage shorts, my gray t-shirt. “Keep it on . . . let me undress you when I get there.”

The curtain slid shut again. I kicked off my sandals and lay down on his bed in the next room, my hands cupped beneath the back of my head. It was only a matter of a few seconds before I heard the water slow to a trickle, then stop, followed by the clatter of the curtain rings and the sounds of Angelo stepping onto his bathmat and drying himself off with a towel. I kept my eyes closed while I listened to him padding down the hallway in my direction.

“Hey,” I heard him say. And then he was on top of me, straddling me at the waist, his mouth on mine. Warm moisture still rose from every square inch of his skin. He smelled clean, almost sweet, as if he’d just stepped out of an ad for grooming products. “So hungry for you,” he murmured, his back arching as his squared-off jaw traveled down my chest.

His fingers fumbled at the tie of my shorts, losing momentum when it became obvious they’d formed a knot. “Sorry,” I murmured, embarrassed and trying to help.

He pushed away my hands. “Sssssh.” As his own fingers continued to work at the puzzle, his mouth pressed against my stomach, his lips pulling at the hairs there, tickling and teasing my skin until all I could do was sigh. Finally I felt my zipper’s release. Unfettered by underwear, my cock sprang forward. He caught it expertly in his mouth, and began to slicken it with his tongue and lips. “I’ve wanted this bad, lover,” he said, detaching himself from me and diving for my balls.

Soon my legs lifted into the air as he wrestled my shorts from them, and then he was on top of me again, cock against cock, his taut, narrow hips grinding against me. We crushed our pelvises against each other, our gyrations meshing in rhythm and increasing in pressure; our lips met again, eyes closed.

When finally I unearthed myself from beneath him and flipped him onto his front, my cock left a shimmering snail’s trail where I slid across the black bedspread. He knelt down, perfect butt high in the air, still gyrating his hips. “Please,” he whispered. “I need it bad.”

“What do you need?” I asked him. He doesn’t answer until I slapped his ass, and then he responded only with a gasp. “What do you need?” I repeated.

“Your cock,” he said. “Inside me. Now. Please.”

Within a minute I was inside him. Then finally I said, “You’re beautiful,” I whispered. It’s the only moment I ever allow myself to make the compliment. The two words instantly made him relax and groan, then step up the intensity of our act. I didn’t have to thrust—he did that for me, backing himself onto and off of my meat like an animal in the throes of heat, his hole contracting and squeezing more strongly than almost anyone I’ve been inside. “Oh god, thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you, thank you.”

I raised up his torso so that he was still kneeling on the bed. I stood behind him, feet on the floor, still deep inside as I craned his neck around to kiss him. Then I pushed him down again, thrusting with more vigor. Both his hands clawed the bedspread; I felt a splash of wetness on my foot. He had shot, spattering the bedspread and the floor. But he kept grinding and groaning, urging me to my climax.

When I came, it was with violence, my teeth clenched, my butt cheeks taut. We both stood there for a moment, breathing heavily. Then he spoke. “Let’s get in the shower.”

This was the part I almost liked best . . . him with a washcloth, bent down in the tub with the spray stinging his back, tenderly washing my penis and my balls, occasionally leaning forward to kiss or lick my only half-flaccidness. His finger lingered in my navel; he gently bent me over to drag the washcloth’s rough surface between my butt cheeks. And then he helped me dry, and brought to my shorts and my t-shirt, and assisted me back into them.

“You really know how to help a guy clear his mind,” he said.

I wanted to tell him that he really was The Handsomest Man in Detroit, but I slipped back on my sandals and said merely, “Thanks.” That’s the way he likes it played, I’ve learned. Casually. As if I’d condescended to do him a favor, rather than the other way around. “Later?”

“Fuck yeah.” He leaned over to give me one more long, grateful kiss. Post-orgasm, I again felt almost unworthy of attention from such a beautiful person.

On my solo return trip out the door, I paused by the discarded jock strap The Handsomest Man in Detroit had been wearing only an hour and a half before during his workout at the gym, and considered whether or not to pick it up and stuff it in my pocket, as a souvenir.