Sebastian tore open the package, gazed in delight at the tiny yellow pouch, studied the strings, worked out which one went between his legs and which around his waist, tucked his penis over his scrotum and placed the flimsy bit of material on top. It was slightly elastic so with judicious pulling and manoeuvring he managed to cover the essentials and tighten the strings to hold it in place before gazing in awe at himself in the full-length mirror.
‘Cool’, he whispered, sharing a complicit grin with his reflection. The only thing he didn’t like were the tufts of black hair sticking out round the edges like a fungal growth, so he shaved his pubes, running the razor over armpits as well. If he was going to be smooth he might as well do it properly. The mirror reflected an image that looked exactly as he’d hoped. Tall, slim and sleek; the pale gold pouch complementing his olive skin.
Sebastian had given up wondering why he hated wearing clothes. He’d always run around naked at home, encouraged by his mother because it saved having dirty clothes to wash and she thought it was healthy. Until the age of ten or eleven nudity had been an innocent and unconscious pleasure. Since puberty, however, being naked among other people had become a source of confusion.
After a restless night filled with sexy dreams, followed by a never-ending day at school, he cycled to a public swimming pool on the other side of the city to avoid running into kids he knew.
There were few swimmers but the grassed area, stretching about fifty metres towards a diamond-wire fence, was jammed with half naked, mostly overweight bodies sunbathing, picnicking under the trees, or standing around hoping to be admired. Females were scantily clad; males wore bulky shorts from navel to knee. He was going to look like a hummingbird among toads.
The thought buoyed him, but to be on the safe side Sebastian asked the pool guard if it was OK to wear backless togs. The fellow shrugged and pointed out three bare bummed women in thongs, sunbathing while their toddlers played.
‘You couldn’t look worse than those great fat arses,’ he sneered. ‘If anyone complains I’ll tell them to bugger off.’ He looked Sebastian up and down and asked, ‘You on your own?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ve had a bit of stealing so put your gear behind the door of my office.” He indicated a blue door to the right of the changing rooms.
‘Thanks! I owe you! It’s a nuisance having to watch stuff all the time.’
‘No worries.’ The guard moved on.
To prevent chaos, those who wanted to swim lengths were only allowed to use the four lanes in the centre, in one direction, from the diving boards to the changing rooms. They then had to get out and walk back to dive or jump in again. Sebastian bravely wandered along the side of the pool, pulses thumping wildly, senses acutely aware of wolf-whistles from a gaggle of girls, stares of incomprehension from teen-aged boys, and the spotlight gaze of dozens of older men and women.
Despite a very audible, ‘Fucking exhibitionist!’ from somewhere near the middle of the sunbathers, he felt more alive than ever before in his life. Proud yet wary. Posture perfect. Determinedly nonchalant. Apparently unaware that he was wearing anything unusual.
With disarming modesty he walked to the end of the diving board, bounced a couple of times then dived neatly in, swimming to the other end and hauling himself out; giving his audience a view of the best buttocks ever to grace the place.
The pool guard was standing in front of the office and beckoned Sebastian over.
‘Have you stuffed your pouch?’ he asked with a grin.’
Sebastian shook his head nervously, staring at his reflection in the mirror-glass window behind the guard. ‘No. Is it rude?’
‘Of course not. There’s nothing more pathetic than a guy in a pouch with nothing to fill it. You're making me jealous.’
Sebastian took a quick look at the guard’s well-muscled body and grinned. ‘I’m jealous of your physique.’
The guard laughed, flexed his biceps, winked and wandered away.
Against the boundary fence under a gaudy umbrella, a large woman of indeterminate age fixed her eyes on Sebastian as he sauntered to the diving board and did a perfect pike. The next time he walked past she sat up and waved.
“Sebastian! Sebastian!’ she screeched, making a hundred heads turn first to her and then to the almost naked young man who suddenly wished he was wearing a wet-suit. He recognised her immediately. Massive Martha. Until this year Sebastian had delivered evening papers for her News agency. She screeched again. She’d been his boss for four years so ignoring her wasn’t an option and he realised he didn’t want to; this was his excuse to get right in among the crowd. Picking his way between dozens of curious men, mothers, children and sunbathing teenagers, stepping carefully over bags and towels, he occasionally looked down and winked at eyes glued to his groin.
Martha, solid and squat in a black bikini that made no attempt to cover everything bikinis were supposed to, was ensconced on an enormous towel, propping her bulk against the wire of the boundary fence. A profusion of solid flesh, straight grey hair hacked off at the level of her earlobes, aggressive mouth and determined jaw gave no inkling of the heart of gold she insisted lay beating in the depths of her beefy bosom. She turned to the elderly hippie beside her.
‘Lysander, this fine specimen of manhood is Sebastian—he was my best paperboy.
Lysander stood and held out a limp hand. As skeletal and feeble as Martha was robust, his grey hippie ponytail and ridiculous earring made him seem much older than he was, while sagging faded Speedos exaggerated the scrawniness of thighs and buttocks. A warm voice and smile compensated for the wrinkles, so Sebastian took the proffered hand and waggled it about.
‘Sit!’ Martha ordered, patting the towel between her and Lysander.
Sebastian sat, wondering what would be their reaction if the cord round his waist or between his legs broke and his cods burst forth.
‘Lysander is an anthropologist,’ Martha announced proudly.
‘How nice,’ Sebastian replied, having not the faintest notion what an anthropologist was.
Both adults were staring silently at his pouch.
Obeying an urge to display his charms he leaned back on his elbows.
‘I want to congratulate you,’ Lysander said in a husky voice, his gaze never wavering from the apparently swelling yellow pouch.
Sebastian frowned at the older man. ‘What for?’ He asked sharply, hoping the fellow was only a voyeur and not expecting to touch the display.
‘One of my fields of study is expressions of male sexuality in different cultures. It’s an extension of Margaret Meade’s work in the Pacific Islands.’
Sebastian nodded in incomprehension, relieved that his penis had changed its mind.
‘Did you know that more than half of all Australian men are more or less impotent, and eighty-two percent feel insecure about their bodies and sexuality?’
Sebastian shook his head.
‘This insecurity and inability to achieve an erection translates into anger and depression. Most people don’t realise how this, and female reactions to the problem makes men feel so frustrated and angry it can lead to wife-beating and rape.’
‘Gosh.’ Sebastian wondered what this had to do with the present situation. Was the old bugger referring to the fact that his erection had failed to develop?
‘Did you know that boys do much better in single-sex schools than in co-educational schools because of this sense of inferiority?’ Lysander looked up owlishly.
‘No,’ Sebastian replied, awed that someone had studied such things, still wondering what it had to do with him. ‘I go to a single sex school.’
Ignoring the interruption Lysander ploughed on. ‘The recent origins of male self-image problems appeared in the late nineteen seventies, early eighties, when an upsurge of U.S.A. fundamentalist Protestant Puritanism decreed that men should hide their thighs with Bermuda shorts. After that they had to hide their chests with T-shirts. Then they had to hide the shape of their genitals even when swimming with the dreadful board shorts. Lethal things that fill with water, prevent boys from learning to swim properly, and cause several drownings a year.’ He paused for a much needed breath. Tar-filled lungs are no use to an orator.
‘Fortunately, my generation was not like that,’ he continued loudly, looking round to include the dozen or so people nearby who were staring with undisguised curiosity. ‘We wore brief shorts, went bare-chested all summer, swam in bikinis, and were proud of the bulges in our groins! We are the last emotionally healthy generation of Australian males and I had despaired for the future until I saw you! You are magnificent! You walk confidently, unashamed, proudly exposing the muscles that lifted humans above the other apes.’
He paused as if for applause.
Sebastian was too embarrassed to speak or listen properly and there were titters from the spectators. If Lysander epitomised sexy manhood in middle age, then Sebastian hoped he’d die young!
‘Thanks, I think. But not everyone agrees with you. Someone over there yelled that I was an exhibitionist.’
‘Ridiculous!’ Lysander snorted causing several more heads to turn. ‘An exhibitionist wants to shock. You are the opposite; you celebrate your youth and manhood. Perverts are people who think men’s sexuality should be concealed.’ He turned and glowered at everyone around him. ‘Repression of natural desires is the reason so many men post naked pictures of themselves on the Internet. They daren’t do it in public—they aren’t brave like you. The moral retards who denounce nudity are too stupid to realise it is their censorship that is creating demand for pornography. Humans are pathetic!’ he snapped in disgust, then paused and glared at a repulsively fat young fellow in long orange board-shorts, biting into a hamburger.
‘I sometimes wonder,’ he continued after a prolonged coughing spree, ‘if this modern modesty signals the end of civilisation. Two thousand years ago nudity was normal. Most indigenous peoples were naked if it was warm enough. The Greeks did all sport naked!’ He coughed again while ostentatiously scratching his groin. ‘Which school do you go to?’
Sebastian stared in horror. The old bugger had an erection! ‘What?’ he asked, then remembered the question. ‘Mt Hurmese Boy’s Grammar, why?’ He had to escape these two nutters!
‘Are you a sportsman?’
‘I do Graeco-Roman wrestling.’ Sebastian offered.
‘Naked?’ Lysander demanded.
‘Of course not.’
‘But you'd like to.’
‘No. It’s only me and the teacher. The other guys prefer karate.’
Several people who were listening to Lysander’s nonsense giggled audibly. Sebastian wanted to dissolve. This was not the sort of attention he was seeking!
‘I’m jealous of you,’ Martha interrupted. ‘I’d love to wander round bare chested, but haven’t your courage.’
As she was already exposing at least three times as much flesh as Sebastian, he thought she was being somewhat greedy.
‘Be a dear and fix my cushion,’ she demanded, leaning forward.
Sebastian got to his knees and adjusted the cushion to better to protect her back from the wires. As Martha lay back he slipped a loose strap of her bra over a hook-shaped wire protruding from the fence.
Too polite to just get up and go, Sebastian gazed towards the pool in desperation and saw a young man in white Speedos beside the diving board. ‘I’ve just seen a friend over there I promised to meet. I’ve got to go.’
‘I feel like a swim too’, Martha announced. ‘Pull me up.' She extended her hand.
Sebastian grabbed it and heaved violently. She careered forward, tumbling onto a young couple immediately in front. Her bra remained on the fence.
Pretending not to notice, Sebastian leapt agilely over recumbent bodies to the diving board and confronted the young man.
‘Please pretend you know me and we’re friends,’ he pleaded. ‘I have to escape those people.’
The young man, who had been wondering how to approach the scantily clad Adonis racing towards him, placed an arm round his shoulders and said, ‘Only if you kiss me.’
‘What! Here?’
‘No, underwater. Come on,’ and he dived in.
Sebastian followed and the kiss was brief, but sufficiently crazy to excite him.
They surfaced, breathless.
‘I’m Rodney.’
‘Sebastian.’
They swam and lay on the warm concrete as far from Martha as possible, where Sebastian’s usual manic desire to communicate soon had Rodney laughing.
‘Well, she said she wanted to go topless,’ he laughed.
He was a little surprised when Rodney asked about his school and showed interest in the athletic sports the following week. Pleasure turned to nervous fear when asked if he had a girlfriend.
‘No,’
‘A boyfriend?’
Sebastian’s heart pumped. The world stood still. His throat constricted. Was Rodney a gay basher? They were everywhere.
‘No.’
‘You're too good looking to be het, are you gay?’
‘Are you?’
Rodney just laughed and gathered up his things. ‘Look for me at the Sports Day, I’ll come and cheer you on.’
Sebastian stared after him. Mind a blank. What had that been about?
Gay. The word was meaningless to him. Sebastian wasn’t ignorant, he’d read magazines, surfed the Internet for sexy pictures of guys, knew what the word meant, but it didn’t describe him. No single word described him! He was a son and student who loved reading, dancing, singing, acting, sprinting, sunbathing wrestling and swimming. He hated team sports and individual competitions unless he was sure of winning. He was a bit of a loner and didn’t seem to have much in common with most other students. He liked wrestling, but just for the exercise. He enjoyed exams and looking after the few plants in their garden–flowers as well as vegetables. He’d enjoyed woodwork and flower arranging. He’d also made himself a pair of shorts on his mother’s sewing machine.
He didn’t object to girls, just never thought about them. He wasn’t sexually attracted to any of the boys at school. Well, one, but he’d never told him and they’d done nothing in the four years. Sometimes he wanked when thinking about Mr. Achilles in his Lycra wrestling gear. He shook his head to remove the nonsense. Gay didn’t describe him! He was just a normal seventeen year-old who found a few men sexy.
The other kids used gay as an insult, but they also used Boong, Wog, Nig, egghead and four-eyes as insults. So as Sebastian’s neighbours were Indians and he liked them; his best friend was an asocial, super-intelligent eco freak; and the school principal wore glasses to read, he’d always imagined there was no logic in any of the insults. The only girls he saw were usually giggling and whispering on street corners, and none of the girls at the pool today had interested him in the least. Rodney though, he was sexy, and Sebastian wouldn’t mind kissing him again. And the guard. He was sort of tough and rough with broad shoulders and a tattoo on his biceps. He was sexier than Rodney.
Sebastian entered the office feeling somehow deflated. The guard was standing staring out the window and Sebastian realised he must have been looking at him.
‘Is that guy your boyfriend?’
‘No, we've just met.’
‘He’s sexy.’
‘Not as sexy as you,’ Sebastian blurted, breaking into a nervous sweat. The guy would probably thump him. One day he’d make a mistake and say something stupid like that to a nutcase with a flick knife, who’d bury it in his chest after hacking off his balls. ‘Just joking,’ he added hastily. ‘Great tat.’ He added, indicating the seahorse tattoo on the guard’s biceps.
‘My name’s Ari.’
‘Sebastian’
‘There’s a butterfly on my bum if you wanna see it?’ The grin was cheeky.
A swarm of butterflies were flapping in Sebastian’s throat and chest.
‘OK.’
Ari kicked the door shut, then instead of just pulling down the top of his togs, he pulled them off, tossed them into the corner and twisted to show the tiny butterfly. Sebastian touched it lightly, grinning as another wank fantasy came true. Within seconds his pouch was off and with lips locked in a gentle kiss that Sebastian hoped would never end, they lay on the cool tiled floor and brought each other to orgasm.
‘Gee, Ari, that was my first time and…and it was just so great I…I…thanks.’