Page 3 of Comforting the Grump
Yet now, as their willing hands and mouths continued their fervent exploration, I found myself retreating into disinterest. I was there, tangled in the heat of their embrace, but my mind wandered, unmoored from the once-captivating allure of carnal gratification. My body felt like a foreign entity, my cock a stubbornly soft betrayal that refused to play its part.
I was plastered between two incredibly attractive people who should, by any standard, push all my buttons, yet I found it tedious and tiresome instead of tantalizing and titillating. What the hell did that mean? What was wrong with me? I’d participated in dozens of these, if not more, and they’d always provided ecstasy, so what had changed?
“Something wrong?” he asked, pausing mid-caress.
“Nothing, just a long day,” I lied smoothly.
Frustration clawed at me. Why had the thrill deserted me so abruptly, leaving behind a hollow void where voracious need used to reside?
“Let’s change things up,” she said in a silken promise. “Gary will fuck me, and once I’m warmed up, we can do a DP.”
“Sure.” What should’ve sent desire through me instead felt like another task on my never-ending to-do list. I loved DPs, anal or vaginal, regardless of people’s sex. A manwhore was what Ioften called myself, and I was proud of it. Kinda hard to be one right now when my cock wasn’t even at half-mast.
Next to me, the couple moved with a grace and eagerness that should’ve had me mesmerized, but all I could summon was an almost clinical appreciation for the aesthetics of their passion—a detached admiration for the way her hair fanned out across the pillow, how her boobs bounced as he fucked her roughly, the rhythmic rise and fall of his broad chest. They were masterpieces of the human form, yet my ability to engage with the art before me had slipped through my fingers like sand.
No amount of changing positions or novel stimuli could rekindle the flame that had extinguished without warning. The realization seeped into my consciousness, cold and uninvited. I felt like an actor forgetting his lines, the script lost somewhere between the wings and the spotlight.
“Sorry,” I finally muttered, rolling away from them. “I can’t today.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” She reached out to graze my arm. The gesture was probably meant to soothe, but it felt like a courtesy rather than an intimate connection.
“Another time.” Her husband masked his disappointment with a supportive smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Another time,” I echoed, though we all knew it was a polite lie.
I got dressed in seconds, hurrying out the door without looking back.
The drive back to my condo was a blur of streetlights and shadow, my mind caught between irritation and self-analysis. What the hell was wrong with me? This wasn’t the first time my desire had failed to show up for the main act. I’d had a few close calls recently. But tonight, the absence of pleasure had been so stark it had bordered on anesthetic.
When my thoughts turned too depressing, I told Siri to call Auden. He’d called earlier that day, but I’d been in a meeting and had promised to call him back. “Hey,” I said when he picked up. “What’s up?”
“How’s life?” he asked.
Like I was telling him the truth. Hell no. “Busy at work and fucking my way around the city.”
Auden chuckled. “In other words, same as always.”
“Pretty much, yeah. And with you? Caught any bad guys lately?”
Auden was the sheriff of our small hometown of Forestville, a quaint little town about an hour east of Seattle. I’d been all too happy to leave after graduating from high school to escape the drunk son of a bitch whose sperm created me. But lately, I’d been spending more time back home, since most of my close friends had moved back for varied reasons.
“Clocked a guy in a Ferrari yesterday who was doing ninety-two miles per hour on Route 2.”
I whistled between my teeth. “That’s way too risky. I’m not sure I’d even have the balls to drive that fast there.”
“Well, he won’t get that chance again anytime soon because we confiscated his car and he won’t get his license back for a while.”
“Good. You probably saved some lives by getting him off the road. Anyway, what were you calling for earlier?”
“It’s Violet’s seventeenth birthday next week, and she asked me to invite you. We’re celebrating on Friday evening at our house, and you’re more than welcome for dinner as well.”
I wanted to go, but why had Auden’s oldest daughter asked for me specifically? Eighteen years ago, when Auden had confided in me that he was sterile, I’d offered to donate my sperm so he and Tricia could have kids. They’d taken me up on my offer, so Auden’s two girls were biologically mine. That didn’tmean anything though. I was Uncle Marnin to them, their dad’s best friend—though they’d known I was their sperm donor for a while now.
“Who else is coming?” I asked.
“Her mom and Jason, of course, my parents, my brother… It’s a family thing, basically.”
Auden and Tricia had been divorced for a number of years now, and both had remarried. Auden was the happiest I’d ever seen him with his husband, Keaton. Those two were nauseatingly blissful but perfect for each other.