"Shit!" The cut I'd just given myself on my finger started to leak blood all over my hand. I dropped the knife and headed for the kitchen sink. "Fucking brilliant," I said to myself as I held my finger under the faucet and worked some soap all over the nearly 2-inch long cut I'd managed to give myself as I'd been slicing up some beef for dinner. It's not that I regularly have these kinds of accidents as I go about my day, but I'd certainly been more absent-minded today. I'd already smashed my knee into a rack of weights at the gym, and I'd made a mess with the blender this morning when I was making a shake and somehow didn't realize the lid wasn't on completely. I even managed to get some of the still-quite-lumpy protein mix in my eye. I think I might have outdone myself with this new cut, adding to today's tally--although thankfully it didn't look like I'd need stitches; it wasn't too deep and the bleeding was starting to taper off.
I knew why I was so distracted today, I just didn't really want to admit it to myself. That would mean acknowledging that I hadn't actually moved on the way I'd been telling myself I had. I shook my head 'get a grip Colby!'
It had been three years. Three long years putting myself back together, finally being able to look at people in the eye, getting just enough self-esteem to start being able to live again--at least somewhat. Going back to the gym had been difficult, at first I expected to see him there again, just as I had that first time all those years ago. I knew it was never going to happen, he was gone, I was sure I would never see him again in my life. Not after the way he ended things. I knew he was leaving this town, maybe even moving to another country. It didn't matter though, he had broken my spirit so completely that even though I knew it would never happen, I couldn't help the anxiety I felt that I'd see him around somewhere...
Except it wasn't all fear. I know it's pathetic, I know I should have hated him for the way he upended our lives like that without any warning, but even as I was worrying I might run into him, I was also almost hoping that I would. I wanted to shout, scream, throw things, cry, and maybe even punch him in his stupid face. But mostly I had wanted him to throw his arms around me, squeeze me tight, and tell me he was sorry; that he loved me and that he would never leave me ever again.
Eventually those feelings went away, bit by bit...mostly. I had been drinking a after it happened. I turned to alcohol because even though it didn't make me feel better, it helped me feel nothing. And feeling nothing was better than the pain I felt when I was sober.
I'd never known a pain like that before. I'd loved before him, a few times. I'd had my share of breakups. But most of the time I'd been the one to end things, and I'd like to think when I had to tell my soon-to-be exes that I didn't see a future for us, that I did so with much more tact and comfort than the way Jason stated it matter-of-factly to me that cool autumn night. There had been more than a couple of my former boyfriends who became friends in spite of our breakup. And the odd time that there were tears on one side or another, we still managed to hug...if I'm being completely honest, there were more than a few 'breakup fucks'. When there had been sadness, it seemed to be more from the idea that I'd hurt the other person, someone I'd loved. I hated being the bad guy. But I had never felt, ever, the sense of loss that hit me when Jason blindsided me the night he told me he was leaving.
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We'd had almost a decade together. We had met when I was twenty-three years old. He was a few years older, not quite thirty, but he seemed so worldly, so mature; I remember feeling like I'd never laid eyes on anyone like him before. And I had definitely been laying my eyes on him, it was difficult not to. At the gym, wearing what was probably a double extra-large, long-sleeved tee-shirt that was still about to rip at the seams, sweat dripping down his face as he flexed the biggest biceps I'd ever seen, straining to bring the weights back up one more time. And then again. And impossibly, considering just how much weight he was actually using, continued to do reps beyond what I could have sworn was humanly possible.
I was pretty sure he hadn't seen me, he had his headphones in, and clearly was concentrating on what he was doing. But it wouldn't have been difficult for him to realize that he had a spectator, as I'm pretty sure I didn't move for over a minute while I just stared at him. Eventually I came to my senses, realized that there were other people around who could see that I was just staring at this absolute beast of a man, and realized that if HE noticed me, he might not necessarily appreciate that I was staring. There were very few gay guys at this gym, it's not really very cruisy. It was the kind of place that had seen it's heyday probably well before I was born. It had a few machines, that were often out of service, and a few pieces of cardio equipment. But it was mostly weights, dinged-up, somewhat rusted, and in every single corner of the fairly large space. It was a gym for people who really wanted a workout, and who did not have any desire to sit on the cushioned seat of some expensive piece of equipment just so they could take photos for their Instagram account. This was the kind of place that you would rarely see people talking to each other, and where it was strongly discouraged to be on your phone at all. It was a MAN's gym, and I had started going there just the year before; after I'd started feeling like I had outgrown the more expensive 'soft-core' gyms, in the more trendy part of town where most of the gays went, and where the change rooms were indistinguishable from a bathhouse. I had certainly had my fun getting fucked in the showers a few times, and sucking strangers' cocks in the sauna, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly and I wanted somewhere more serious about actually working out.
I wasn't a bad looking dude, in fact I was quite handsome for a kid. And I'd put on about 30 pounds of muscle from when I'd first joined a gym after high school. I'd been very popular when I started going out to party at the clubs. But I realized that I liked weightlifting for so much more than the way it made me look: it made me FEEL good. There were few things more satisfying than feeling a workout get easier, and moving up to the next set of weights. I was proud of myself, and I had goals. I was going to push myself harder and go farther than I'd ever thought possible for myself back when I was just a lanky teenager. I had a big torso and chest, round traps, nice wide back, arms were getting bigger and bigger, and legs like tree trunks...but it was my ass that I worked on the most. Part genetics, part luck, and many parts hard work, I had something not a lot of other guys could compete with. I guess that's probably directly related to the part of my persona that makes me a total bottom. I had a really nice dick too, so who knows if I would be still be a bottom if I didn't have the ass that I had?
