1.
John woke up, his mind flooded with mad desires and lustâstill influenced by the wet dream that had spoiled his boxers. He took a long, cold shower while coffee brewed. However, the plentiful stream of hot water failed to wash away the strong, bizarre sensations that had tortured his mind for months.
He poured himself a steaming cup of coffee and lit a cigarette, still only with a towel wrapped around his waist, water dripping down on his shoulder from his damp long hair.
He opened his laptop; however, no matter how hard he tried, there was no way in hell he could concentrate on the news. Nothing seemed interestingâhe didn't care about the articles explaining why Greece would not recover from the recession any time soon, he didn't care about the articles about the increasing crime rate in downtown Athens.
The only articles he did click on were those containing racy photos of celebrities and modelsâand his sole thought, while he quite listlessly scrolled through the photographs, was how easier life would be, and how much more enjoyable,
if
he was (like) them.
He moved his gaze to the window and to the clear, hot Athenian summer morningâjobless like so many people in their mid-20s, he had nowhere to be, nothing to do. Just sit around, drink coffee, send resumes and hope he can compete with the other one thousand hopeful applicants...
He dragged from his badly rolled-up cigarette and once more scanned the headlinesâthe only good news came from the international section: country X has lower crime rate, country Y's economy is booming, etc. For Greece, it was all gloom and ruin: the recession will last at least twenty more years, the brain drain continues, pensions are reduced, unemployment rates have been lowered temporarily due to the summer season, more and more homes are being foreclosed, etc.
With a heavy sigh, he closed the tab; he leaned back on the small metal chair and ran his fingers through his moist hair. Absolutely nothing to do, no one to talk to; most of his friends were either living abroad, or, were too occupied with their girlfriends and families.
He topped his coffee and rolled another cigarette; then, he re-opened the browser and looked up his usual compilation porn videos.
He crossed his legs and leaned back, gently rubbing his nipplesâafter just a few minutes of watching the mash-up of hardcore clips, he succumbed yet again to his innermost desires and logged in the gay chatroom he often used.
He chatted with random strangers, while drawing inspiration from the porn videos, and instantly became more serene. Essentially, he transformed into someone elseâsomeone with no cares in the world but where to find the next cock.
Lying about his experiences and pretending to be a young manslut, while older guys called him names and asked him explicit questions, allowed him temporarily to
be
someone else; for as long as he chatted and rubbed his nipples he had no troubles, nor cares in the world.
It was therefore it had become an addictionâregardless of how hard he tried to concentrate on other things, harsh reality would always strike him down and lead him by the hand back to the small fantasy world wherein he found solace.
However, the past couple of days he'd chatted with a young man (presumably, at any rate) about his experiences from one of Athens' biggest parksâ
Pedion tou Areos
.
While the park at nights was the city's biggest drug hangout, with plenty of users sleeping (and shooting or smoking 8balls) in the bushes, during sunshine hours it also was a popular hangout for sexual escapades (especially homosexual ones)âpredominantly due to its size (any many isolated corners) and bad reputation.
The more he chatted about itâand about the man's experiences (whether real or fictional did not matter one single bit)âthe bigger the desire grew in his head (and loins) to take the leap of faith and just
do it
.
The porn videos encouraged him even furtherâgranted, he knew it was all pretend, the women on the videos only acted as if they had no other care in the damn world than getting fucked,
but
, what if he could also act this way and, even for a brief while, made it come true?
Temporarily manage to escape the cruel reality slowly but steadily suffocating him? Besides, he'd considered the necessity of drastic changes beforeâit was what was needed the most to bring his life back to some semblance of a functioning track.
Hence, a change of "lifestyle preferences" was the utmost drastic change that
could
potentially have a positive impact on his life. Of course, a problem that always arose, especially whenever he came too close actually to arrange a sex-date via the chatroom, was that he was not attracted to men, at all.
He was only attracted to the idea of becoming the "woman", of succumbing to a man and feel utterly helpless and used. He changed the porn videoâwent for a gangbang one.
He rubbed his erect nipples, while his throbbing organ tented the towel. No interesting chat came up; he crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and got up.
Hastily, he put on a black shirt with a very deep V and a pair of yoga pants his former girlfriend had left behind, when she was gone forever. The shirt, due to being quite torn, kept falling off his shoulder, but, it didn't matter. Au contraire, it felt goodâoffered the slutty look he aimed for.
He rolled a dozen of cigarettes and stuffed them in an empty pack of Prince, alongside a lighter. He hid the house key under the mat and went to his old, rusty car; he'd have taken the busâgas had gotten way too fucking expensive, especially for an unemployed man struggling to get byâbut, he just couldn't be around people in this outfit.
His clean-shaven faceâresult of a recent high-end interview with a prestigious companyâand very lean and thin physique combined with the outfit gave him the semi-feminine look he wanted.
During summer, particularly in August, Athens is quite the ghost-townâinasmuch as possible for a city housing five million souls. With most Athenians away on vacation, the drive to the park took merely ten minutes.
He parked near the side entrance and lit a cigarette, turning the radio off; he looked about, noticing the groups of men standing around the entrances; men of all ethnicities and of all skin tones.
With his heart in his throat, he dragged a long puff and got out of the car, stuffing the key in his shoe; he walked timidly toward the park's entrance and his face turned crimson under the several inquiring glares thrown at him.
He tried, to the best of his abilities, to hide his newness; he
had
to look seasoned. If they realized he's a rookie, they'd rip him to shreds; unfortunately, repeatedly reminding himself that did
not