Part of the 'Butt Monkey' series of stories by Robert Furlong
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I'd driven up to Leicester after work to attend the 'Men's Sexual Health Issues' meeting which ran at an adult learning centre on Monday evenings. I suspected the title was really a euphemism to conceal the fact it was aimed at sex addicts and fetishists. Men like me, in other words.
It took me a while to find the right room (I avoided asking at the front desk for obvious reasons) and eventually stumbled across it at the end of a long corridor of locked doors. By the time I walked in, things were just getting started.
I was expecting the chairs to be arranged in a circle, like the sort of group therapy session you see on TV shows, but the room was actually set out as a typical classroom, which it presumably was during the day. There were three rows of chairs which had attachments to lean on if you were writing things down, and our session leader, a bleached-blond young man wearing a tight-fitting checked shirt with the top two buttons undone and a pair of conspicuously expensive jeans, was at the front of the room.
"Oh, hi," he said as I wandered in.
"Hello," I greeted him. "Is this the men's health group?"
"That's right -- come on in," he smiled. He was unashamedly camp and it seemed obvious that he was gay.
I glanced around the room. Three sullen-looking men were already here and were sitting as far apart from each other as they were able to. Their ages ranged from early-twenties to mid-forties and it looked like they were from a variety of walks of life: one was wearing a suit as if he'd come straight from his work in an office; another had a scruffy t-shirt and tattered jeans on as if he'd been on a building site all day.
"There's home-made cookies at the back of the room if you want one," crooned the leader at the front. "Otherwise just grab a free seat and we'll get started."
I smiled over at him. This all seemed very civilised.
I sat down in the chair that would leave the biggest space between me and the others. That seemed to be the established etiquette of the group.
"Okay," the bleached guy began after he'd closed the door. "It's great to see you all here. I'm Claude and I'll be your session leader for this evening."
First he went through a few ground rules, especially about the importance of anonymity and how we had to respect each other's boundaries. Then he told us that he would start the session by outlining his own background.
After telling us that he was a trained counsellor and therapist -- having studied at London South Bank University, no less -- Claude explained why he'd been drawn into the field of men's health. To my surprise, and that of the rest of the men from the way they shuffled awkwardly in their seats, he told us that for many years he had been, what he termed, "a serial masturbator".
Since being a teenager, he'd been bashing the beef more than five times a day, sometimes up to twenty times, without respite. As an effeminate and rather delicate young man, it was difficult to imagine him doing something so crass as to be continually jerking his dick off all over the place, and I wondered how on earth he found the time.
Claude went on to tell us that the urge to constantly pleasure himself was still a problem, but he had been able to suppress it for over four years using something he called cognitive behaviour therapy.
"Do you still masturbate?" the guy in the suit asked, his accent quite clipped.
"Of course," Claude smiled. "Just like most men. But I set myself goals and try not to exceed them. At the moment I'm aiming for once per day, but I can allow myself relief up to three times if I need to."
He looked over at me as if for some kind of reaction and I nodded sagely. I didn't really know what else I could do.
"Okay," he said to the group. "You've heard all about me; now I want to hear about you. Who'd like to start?"
Again he looked towards me and I felt myself blush as I shrank back.
Fortunately, though, the guy in the suit decided he would be first. He seemed the type who'd be ready to push himself forwards.
"Hello everyone," he said, standing up and turning to face us. "I'm David. My problem, in a nutshell, is that I love putting things up my bum."
He was, as I'd noticed, impeccably well-spoken and for some reason that made his declaration seem rather less surprising.
"It started about ten years ago," he went on, "and now I do it compulsively. I'm married and my wife is very understanding, but... well... it's a problem."
"In what ways is it a problem?" Claude asked.
David shrugged. "For a start, it's unhygienic."
The rest of us chuckled.
Claude pursed his lips in disapproval at our amusement and then asked, "Okay, David. What sort of things do you put up there?"
"Anything that'll fit. Vegetables, ornaments, plastic bottles, torches... you name it."
"And do you masturbate when you have objects inserted up there?"
David nodded. "Yes. It feels a lot more intense that way, especially thrusting them in and out. That's what my wife can't understand -- she thinks I must be partly gay."
"And -- if I can ask -- do you feel any homosexual attractions?"
"Not really," David replied. "I have had a penis up there... I mean, you know... I've let a guy have sex with me. A few guys, actually. But I don't feel attracted to men in a sexual way -- it's just nice to have the feeling of being penetrated with someone else doing the hard work."
Again we chuckled and Claude tutted over at us. It seemed laughter wasn't allowed in his sessions.
David grinned at us all as if pleased to have unburdened himself and then sat back down on the backside he had kept so well occupied.
The next man to introduce himself was the guy in the dirty jeans. His muscles were huge and his biceps heavily tattooed. He stayed seated and told us -- or, rather, told the floor in front of him -- that he was called Shane and was a carpenter. His problem was that he liked penetrating things.
"What sort of things?" Claude asked.
Shane shrugged. He didn't seem comfortable about speaking to a group of people. "It's like that guy," he said, gesturing over at David. "Anything and everything. As long as it's got a hole of roughly the right size."
"Like what, though?" Claude persisted.
"I dunno. A melon once. A chicken we bought for Sunday lunch. A bike. A lamp post. A picnic table..."
Claude turned on the rest of us before we could laugh. We put our hands over our mouths to conceal our smirks.
The youngest guy was next: he looked like he was a student or recent graduate and had spikey hair and narrow, fashionable specs. He introduced himself rather timidly as Phillip and his particular "health issue", he told us quietly with a voice which was surprisingly deep for his age, was porn. He was obsessed with it and felt compelled to look at it many times each day.
"What kind of porn?" Claude asked.
"All sorts," Phillip said, his cheeks colouring a little. "Hardcore stuff with women, mainly, but I like variety. Gay, bondage, milf and bukkake... anything."
He seemed so shy and respectable, I was surprised at his fascination. But then he would probably, in a moment or so, have similar thoughts about me.
