(first appeared at www.herecomeseveryone.me Boy/Girl issue 8/16/2014)
For some people the world around them and the world they live are distinctly different places. Such was the case for Caesar. Born Brad, he changed his name to sound more exotic. He would be the first to admit that he liked the name Caesar because it sounded like “seize her.”
Unfortunately there was a distinct lack of “seizing” going on in his life so he was forced to “seize” himself from time to time.
Which drove his wife crazy.
She hated the idea of him pleasuring himself to other women on the internet and felt that it was a direct violation of the wedding vows. Numerous times she would feel that he had been in the other room tossing one off and they would end up in a brawl as he denied everything. She would feel hurt and he would pretend to be insulted at the very idea that he would resort to masturbating to images of women he would never meet.
If you remember the opening line of this story you'll understand that Caesar wasn't being quite honest. There was a part of him that felt closer to these women than he did to most of his friends. How could he ever feel intimacy with people that still called him Brad?
One night his wife had had enough. She lay in bed waiting for him deep into the night. She heard familiar rustlings in his den and suspected that he was up to his old tricks so she decided a bold move was required. When he walked in she sat up in bed pretending to be feeling amorous and offered him a blowjob.
Caesar had a problem.
He had indeed been up to no good in his den and he was suddenly in a gunfight with no bullets. Obviously he couldn't pretend that he wasn't in the mood. Every man is always in the mood for a blow job. He was going to have to call her bluff.
He walked forward with a large grin on his face. He expressed his enthusiasm for her little scheme.
This startled her. It was not the reaction she expected. Had she been wrong about the rustlings?
Had he been playing her all along with the ol' fake masturbation ruse?
It was too late to back down now. She hopped out of bed and assumed the position in front of him.
Caesar, suddenly feeling very Brad, suddenly got the feeling you get when you pull into your favorite restaurant only to find it closed. It will make you suddenly feel two things at once. No amount of desire for pancakes will turn on the lights in the establishment nor get the chef back behind the grill.
He pressed his face against the glass and wondered how long it would be until it was open.
His wife was wondering something very similar as his member hung limply before her.
She looked up at him.
He looked down at her.
Awkward.
Then a smile slowly started to creep across his wife's face.
“Something wrong?” she inquired.
Truth be told, if you've just had a meal of pancakes the last thing you want is more pancakes. He looked back at the empty parking lot and up at the huge sign that usually was brightly lit and offering up the daily specials. Sometimes it helped to undo the top button of your pants when you're faced with a second meal but in this case the pants were not only unbuttoned but resting comfortably around his ankles.
“Admit it. Admit that you were just whacking it,” his wife said as her smile began to evaporate.
His response required some delicacy as his soft member was now being clutched in the formidable hand of his mad-and-getting-madder spouse.
The distance between where they were and where he was was getting further. Any time the word was appears twice in a row you know it's a bad sign.
He looked through the door into the darkened restaurant and hoped that a key would suddenly appear to slide into the lock and allow the phantom personnel to take their rightful place behind the griddle and start slinging the necessary batter.
But none appeared. Pancakes just don't work like that.
His wife, growing tired of waiting for an apology, explanation or alibi, eventually stormed out of the room. He banged on the window of the closed establishment then threw up his hands to the stars and cursed fate. The only other sound being the buzzing of the obligatory flickering streetlight a few hundred yards away or maybe it was a mile. It's always hard to tell in these metaphors.
Brad, his pants still down, shuffled off to find his wife.