Note: This story is about a man trapped in the routine of his small world, from which he is not able to escape. I use the term "Groundhog Day" in reference to the film of the same name, in which a man was literally trapped in that precise day, so every time he woke up it was Groundhog Day again. Thank you for reading, I hope you lke it.
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[Alarm buzzing]
'No way!' That was the first conscious thought that crossed my mind. After a few seconds, I reacted and stopped the alarm clock. Little by little I came back to reality. My wife was there, next to me. She turned around, like she was trying to prevent the new day from happening.
Suddenly, the memories of all the things I had to do before going to work came to my mind, as well as the little time that I had to do them. That woke me up quickly. Before leaving bed, I looked at my wife. 'She is still so beautiful,' I thought. I could not help remembering the old times, when the first thing that we thought about when we woke up was sex. They seemed so far now...
Finally, I stood up with a 'morning hard-on'. I looked at it and thought 'I know, yesterday neither it was our day', like I was talking to my dick. Clumsily, I went to the bathroom to pee. I looked at myself in the mirror while I waited for my cock to go down. My face did not look bad, but I found a gray hair in my head. 'Another step to the old age,' I told to myself.
I looked at my cock again and it was already soft. I talked to it again: 'Ok, I get it, we are getting old and that's not exciting, but if you were a little bigger, things would be easier'.
While I was going back to the bedroom to wake up my wife, I had an anguished feeling of 'deja vu' (the feeling of 'I've already lived this exact moment in the past'). I calmed down myself with irony. 'great, Groundhog Day again,' I told to myself. I could not imagine that the incoming 24 hours would change my life forever.
The daily ritual included having breakfast with my wife and two children. Then, I brought my sons to the school and then went to work. Every day the same routine.
I used to worked in the sales department of a big company. For the last ten years, I had owned the best numbers in my department, but lately there was a guy who had surpassed me by a narrow margin. His name was Bob. He was younger than me, very competitive and, to be fair, very good at his job. I was not so competitive, but I had got used to be the best in my job, and now, that boy had arrived to my place with his arrogance, his blonde hair and his gym body to do better numbers than me, and that pissed me off a lot.
That day, however, things changed. I was able to close a deal, a big one, with an important client. It was my chance to recover my proud, to send "Mr. Perfect" the message that I was still at the top. But before claiming victory, I needed the deal to be signed. Business are tough, and a deal without a sign means nothing. My boss knew this, and he wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong in the last minute, so he decided that his two best men would go to the client's offices as soon as possible to ensure that the contract is signed according to the terms agreed.
So, two hours later there I was, in an airplane with my 'archenemy' (so to say), who supposedly was going to help me to do something that would relegate him to the second place for a long time. I knew that he would not do anything to ruin the deal, but obviously he neither was going to help me too much. Fortunately, there was not many real chances that things went wrong, so despite of the fact that Bob did not open his big mouth in the whole flight, I enjoyed every second of awkward silence.
It was a long trip, and we needed to stay there for the night. There was an event in the town, and with so little time it was impossible to find enough available rooms in the hotels there. Our company was only able to find a single room, in one of the most expensive hotels. That meant that we were going to share room. That made me feel uncomfortable, but I was too happy about my victory to really care about that.
When we arrived, we went directly to the client's offices. They received us as expected, and then we started to discuss the details of the contract. Everything seemed right, but when we were about to finish, suddenly the client told us that he wanted include an additional clause. That clause was unacceptable for our company. I tried everything to convince them to remove it, but nothing worked.
Just when I was about to throw the towel, Bob, who had stayed in silence all the meeting, started talking. With truly mastery, he was able to convince our client to sign the contract without that clause.
Although it was the best for all, it was totally unexpected to me. He was not the kind of guy that put the company above his personal interest, or at least that was what I thought. I felt bad with myself for being so severe judging him. Maybe he was not so selfish after all.
"I owe you one, Bob," I told him with low voice when we leaved the meeting room.
"No problem. Anyway, it would have been a problem for both of us if we go back empty-handed."
"That's right, but... it was my deal, I'm impressed. The least thing that I can do is to invite you to have a drink to celebrate it."
"Fair enough," he responded with a smile.
We found a nice bar near the hotel. We took there several drinks. At the beginning, we had the typical superficial talk: women, sports, cars, etc., but after some time, I got more sincere:
"Listen, Bob, I owe you an apology. I thought you were selfish and arrogant, and today I have realized that I was wrong, you saved my ass today."
"It's ok, you've just described my normal behavior. To be honest, I'm very competitive. I like to win, to conquer, more than anything. And I am damn good; I know it and I don't hide that I know it, you can call arrogance to that. But it would not be exciting if I let you fail today, I don't want to beat you that way, old man," he told me with a smile while he offered me a toast.
"I toast for that," I replied, and we toasted.
"So you love to compete," I asked him.
"It's not the competition, but the challenge. I must admit that beating you is a great challenge. You are very good at your job, but I know I can do it better. Today things just got more interesting."
"Maybe you are better or maybe this old man kick your ass, we'll see," I replied with a friendly tone.
"That's the reason why I like so much to push you, you always fight back."
"I see, he he. But I still don't understand, I mean, you have everything: you are young, tall, smart... for god sake, I see you every time with a different beautiful woman!, don't you have enough with that? Why do you always want more?"
"Well, that... yes, I suppose that I have been with many women, I'm good at seducing them, but then... I mean... they don't usually want a second date."
"What do you mean, why not?"
"Well, I'm ashamed... I can trust you, right?"
"Absolutely, you can tell me anything," I responded firmly.
"Ok, here it goes: my cock is quite small."
"Come on! It can't be so bad."
"In fact, it is. I like hot women, and I know how to seduce them. The problem is that they expect a big man, in all the senses. Most of them don't say a word, but I can feel their disappointment. Unfortunately, I'm good at guessing thoughts and feelings of people, and I know when a woman is faking. Some of them don't even try, and a few even make jokes about my manliness."
"I'm sorry, Bob, that must be hard. If you want my advise, I would look for someone who likes you as you are, not as a piece of meat. Let me tell you that I understand you, my cock is not big either, but I found someone who wanted to be with me, and we've been married for 10 years."
"I envy you. You have all you need: love, family, good sex..."
"Well, nothing is perfect. I love my wife and she loves me, but the sex is no longer what it was. It's like she does not want to have sex with me any more. When we got married, I could feel her desire for me. We had a lot of sex, it was almost like a drug. But now, we barely have any sex at all."
Normally, I would not talk so much about intimate things, but taken into account the circumstances I felt free to speak, and that was something that I needed.
He responded: "It's a pity, have you spoken with her about this? I'm sure that she loves you, you two seem to fit so well..."
"Yes, several times. Every time we talk about this, things go back to where they were for a couple of weeks. But then, little by little, things go back again to the starting point. I feel like I am not capable to satisfy my wife. Nowadays, I am not sure if I ever was, or it was just that she faked it to make me feel good, I'm afraid that I'm not as good as you at guessing what a woman feels."
"So it seems that we are both in the same boat but with different rowings. How do you manage it? You look so calmed and balanced."