When I was teaching I was offered a discount on a gym membership. The director of my school thought it a good idea that her staff be in shape, considering the sometimes petri dish-like atmosphere of a classroom full of international students. So, in my forties (that was some time ago, reader) I began to be a regular at a gym next to my school.
During the pandemic, when almost everything except grocery stores and chemists was shuttered, I switched over to my current provider, downtown and closer to home. The space itself occupies the old Eaton's department store flagship, built in the late 1920s. A testament to high Deco and hallowed commerce, René Lalique and Jacques Carlu haunt the upstairs reaches.
Other creatures, oftentimes neither lithe nor willowy in any Art Deco sense, haunt the change room and the showers of this place. The showers are few, but I am the type of man who needs to be free of sticky sweat before I leave the place. Once, surveying what was free or not, I stumbled upon the open curtain of a cubicle to find a man standing there, staring at me, beckoning me with a flagpole uncut erection announcing his intentions. Come hither, his face implored.
Held eye contact is not uncommon. Assets are considered with side glances - or outright stares.
One Brasilian fellow made the point of letting me know in no uncertain terms that he enjoyed that I stripped down naked to change, unlike his contemporaries, who are a more cautious breed.
There is a technique that young men employ when changing into their gym outfits. They are able to pull down their briefs while wearing a towel around their waists. It seems there is a new prudishness among them that I am seeing more of. Young colts, too squeamish to let their junk flop freely in the world, twist and writhe uncomfortably, easing their jockeys down their hairy legs all the while miraculously holding that towel in place, keeping the jewels locked from sight.
My Brasilian friend smiles and stares, giving me enthusiastic winks. I suspect, although I have not seen his junk, he sees one of his brethren and appreciates the novelty. Or he simply enjoys seeing some cock - oddly enough a rare sight in a change room these days.
Then there are the bold fellows who tell you right out in class, in the crush of bodies, bare bums, reaching arms, what they think. "I like your body," a carbuncular Persian fellow told me point blank. I was at that moment both flattered and embarrassed. "Thank you," I said. I'm so white. I searched for a reply, commenting on the pleasing and very curly hairiness of his chest. I had to come back with something. When a total stranger flatters you, you can't leave him dangling. Easy confrères must be kind to each other.
Friends have mentioned the actual sex they have had in the steam rooms or the showers at their gyms. I just can't go that far, it's much too impromptu for me. I am certainly of the Kenneth Halliwell school when it comes to off the cuff.
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