Inadequate Men
This is a fictional series about two guys who meet at the gym and find that they have a common bond in their feelings of inadequacy as men.
Chapter 1 -- Small Discovery
Jared always hit the gym late, about an hour before closing. He knew the whole front desk staff by their first names, and they'd all assured him over and over that it was OK for him to take his time getting dressed and out the door. So his workout -- usually some lifting followed by a couple of miles on the treadmill or a fast 20 minutes on the stationary bike -- finished up about 9:50. By then, the locker room was just about cleared out. That was how he liked it.
Other guys might have been disappointed to miss the "last round up" hour, around 9:30, when the final wave of guys headed to the showers in a pack. Some hit the sauna as well, or just took their time getting dressed, and for good reason. The gym's owner, no stranger to the community he was catering to, had over the years filled the locker room with mirrors on just about every vacant wall. If you knew where to stand, there was hardly a corner of the locker room that couldn't be seen covertly from one angle or another.
But this feature gave Jared only one more reason to avoid the locker room while it was crowded with other guys. Not that he didn't welcome an opportunity to check out 30 or 40 buff, sweaty, and mostly available guys in various stages of undress. In fact, truth be told, Jared was more of a voyeur than a lot of his friends. At the beach, while his buddies gawked at the surrounding men for the first ten minutes and then settled back onto their towels to work on their tans, Jared eyes were darting around (behind his sunglasses) for most of the day. He couldn't keep his eyes off of those strong, smooth chests, tight stomachs, and hairy legs all around him. And when one of those guys also had a handsome, gentle face -- warm, caring eyes and a sweet, genuine smile always got him most -- it was almost too much to bear the frustration.
So why was a handsome 32-year-old guy like Jared feeling frustrated on a beach full of guys and avoiding the locker room? For that matter, why hadn't he had a real boyfriend since his early 20s? Sure, he worked a lot of hours at his job at a law firm. As he'd explained more than once to friends and family -- and, yeah, he was out to his family -- he didn't have time for much of a social life. But was that really the reason?
He traced the problem all the way back to September of his freshman year in high school, the first time that he -- and also everyone around him -- knew that there was a problem. It started with those three words that worried just about every other freshman, whether they'd admit it or not: mandatory gym showers.
Looking back, he should have been prepared for it. He was pretty naïve, though. An only child with parents who were a few years older than most of his friends' parents, Jared had been in some ways a very sheltered boy. He always got good grades and liked St. John's, the Catholic school he went to, well enough. He had friends there, the type of friends that his parents had no reason at all to disapprove of -- other relatively sheltered boys like himself.
His best friend had been named Luke. They played baseball and video games, built huge Lego structures in his basement and had endless sleepovers where they watched horror movies. They saw each other just about every day during the school year and spent almost every moment of the summer together. Jared looked back on his friendship with Luke as one of his life's perfect things. They were inseparable from first grade until, in the middle of eighth grade, Luke's father received a promotion at his company. By the end of June, Luke and his family had moved to the suburbs of Chicago.
Jared didn't know until it happened how large a hole the loss of one friend could leave. When he thought about it as an adult, he realized that the whole time he had been in love with Luke. But as kids, that feeling had never really expressed itself sexually. It's not like they were the kind of boys who knew or thought much about sex. Luke was an oldest child with two much younger sisters. His parents were suddenly overwhelmed with diapers and playpens just as Luke might have started getting curious about his body. And Jared, sheltered as he was, just didn't have much awareness of his body or feelings toward Luke.
Jared remembered that he and Luke had been bathed together a few times when they first started sleeping at each other's houses. As first or second-graders, being naked together might have been novel, but it never led to anything more than splashing around together in the bathtub, singing, and playing games. It never led to any exploring of the kind that Jared would enviously hear about from friends in college. He had really missed out, hadn't he?
With Luke leaving, Jared made the decision in eighth grade not to go on to St. John's High School, but instead to enter public school. His parents were grateful. Public school was free, after all, and if Jared's best friend was moving away anyway, it seemed to make sense.
Mandatory gym showers, though. That was daunting. Jared worried about it all summer. Even if he'd stayed at St. John's, he would have had to do them anyway. He and Luke had even talked about it a little. They agreed that when the time came, they would make sure to get lockers right next to each other, and stick close in the showers.
"I mean, it's not like you've never seen me without my clothes on," Luke had said, presumably referring back to the bathtub days.
"Yeah, that's true, I guess," Jared had agreed. "That was a long time ago, though."
For two other boys, it might have led to some curious exploration. Luke and Jared, though, were just a little behind the curve in that way. Jared did remember, for a few months there in eighth grade, imagining what it would be like to get undressed next to Luke, wrap themselves in towels, and shower next to each other in a shower room filled with other boys.
"You're my best friend, Luke," he remembered whispering under his breath once as he lay in bed thinking about it.
His actual experience of his first gym shower was memorable for a whole lot of other reasons. Jared remembered how nervous he was the whole day. Changing into his gym clothes wasn't so bad. He kept his underwear on, as did all the other boys, and in a moment his gym shorts were up over them and he was tying his sneakers. Nothing to it.
By the time Jared returned to the locker room, he could already hear the showers running in the background, because another gym teacher's class had finished up a little earlier than his class. He didn't know any of these kids very well, but in his first few days at school, he had already figured out that they were tougher and more experienced in some hard to explain way than any of the kids at St. John's had ever been. Those kids had really been a pretty nice group, he realized now, and he'd known most of them since grade school. He began to wonder if maybe jumping ship had been a mistake.
The boys around him were talking loudly, and it seemed like some of them weren't even the slightest bit worried about that inevitable moment that could no longer be avoided, pulling down their underwear and revealing what was underneath. Jared was really shaking, and his heart was beating about a thousand beats per minute. His hand was shaking so much that he had to turn his new locker combination three or four times just to get it open.
By that time, some of the boys had already just about stripped down. As one boy's underwear dropped, Jared couldn't believe what he saw. The kid had a boy's face but the rest of him was -- um -- all man. Jared hadn't been expecting that. As one of the youngest boys in the class, having just turned 14 in August, Jared was used to being one of the shorter kids. To make matters worse, he was also a bit behind when it came to starting puberty. He'd even been to see a doctor about it, who had assured him that there was nothing wrong, and that every boy goes through this at his own pace.
As Jared dawdled taking off his gym shorts, three guys came back from the showers, all wearing towels. They were all friends and, fortunately, didn't notice Jared. One of them pulled his towel off, spun it around a few times, and then started cracking it like a whip at his friends' butts. Jared would never forget it. The guy was buck naked and not even embarrassed. And even at 14, he was clearly a good two years into puberty, with a full bush of dark hair, two low-hanging balls, and a dick that look like it belonged to a guy twice his age. No wonder he didn't mind being naked in front of his friends.
Then the friends dropped their towels, and it was the same story. They might have been full-grown men. One kid was swinging his cock around in circles while the other two just laughed and laughed.
Just then the gym teacher walked through and blew his whistle. "Everybody in the showers now! Full soap shower, no exceptions! Move!"
At that moment, if Jared had been given a choice of that shower room or the electric chair, it would have been so much easier. Quickly, he formulated a plan. He would wrap his towel around him while he pulled off his underwear, wear it to the shower room, duck into the shower room and try to keep facing the wall as he took the fastest soap shower humanly possible, and then retreat and re-wrap himself in the towel.
Everything went well as he slid his underwear down under the towel, and then followed the pack of other towel-clad boys to the shower room. As soon as he saw what awaited him, he knew that the game was going to be up soon. Instead of showerheads lining the walls, which would have permitted a bit of privacy, this shower room had four center-sprayers in the middle of a tiled floor that sloped to a square drain in the middle. Worse yet, there was already a line of naked guys around the edge of the shower room, all waiting their turn. There was simply no hiding.
All of the guys around him one by one dropped their towels on the wooden benches that lined the drying room outside the showers. Every single one of them had some amount of hair over his genitals. It somehow made them look less naked. Jared had looked at himself in the bathroom mirror enough times to know what a stark contrast is his own body was in comparison.
Reluctantly, he dropped his towel, covering himself with his hands. In his nervousness, his penis had retracted to its smallest-ever size, as he could feel when he touched himself. He prayed that none of the other boys would notice.
The line moved slowly as he waited with the other boys for his turn at the shower. But no sooner had he entered the shower room than he saw one of the boys who was showering poke his friend and point at him. They both looked and then one whispered to the other, and they both burst out laughing.
Jared knew he must have been beet red. He did his best to step out of the line of view and turned away from them in shame. Everywhere around him was evidence of what a normal 14-year-old boy was supposed to look like. And he was the exception.
He was still waiting for his turn at a shower when a voice behind him said, "Excuse me, little boy, are you even supposed to be in here?"
Behind him, he heard another boy say, "He's in my geography class."
"How old are you?" the kid next to him asked.
"Fourteen," said Jared.
"Are you kidding? You look like my nine-year-old brother. Except his dick is bigger."
"Come on, take your hands away. Let's see."
Jared reluctantly did as he was told. What was the point of trying to hide it?
As the boys looked at him, he remembered feeling like some sort of science experiment. They weren't even taunting him now. They were looking at his penis up close trying to figure out what they were seeing.
Jared's penis was circumcised and very tiny. His testicles still hadn't descended. And he had yet to sprout even the first wisp of light hair. The rest of his exposed body, too, was entirely undeveloped. Even as he thought back upon the experience as an adult, Jared knew that these kids weren't merely being cruel.
"Dude it's like, literally, so small, I like wanna get a magnifying glass," one of them was saying. "Are you really 14?"
Jared just nodded.
"Dude, you better start praying it grows soon."
A space opened up at a shower and Jared took it. He immersed himself under the running water to drown out the other boys' words and the shame that had welled up inside him. He took his time washing himself with soap. As Jared rinsed off, the shower room started emptying out. No one seemed to notice him for the moment. He left the shower room, re-wrapped himself in his towel, and slunk back to his locker. There, he dried off thoroughly, facing away from the other boys as much as he could. He didn't worry about hiding himself as he pulled up his underwear. There really wasn't much point.
By the end of his first two weeks at his new high school, every guy in his gym class was calling him Little Boy. Eventually, they dropped it and just got used to seeing him in the shower next to them. His delayed puberty eventually kicked in toward the end of the school year, but obviously it was too little too late.
He hoped that over the summer he would grow a ton of hair, a huge pair of balls, and a dick that he could swing around as proudly as the kid he remembered from that first day. But it never happened. He just never really did much growing. A few hairs started sprouting, and then turned dark like the books said they were supposed to do. But his balls stayed small and tight in their sack. And while his penis gained a bit of girth, it still displayed just a tiny head when he was soft. As for his erection, if he cheated while measuring, pushing the ruler into his pelvis, he could just manage to top out at about 3.5 inches.
For the most part after that, high school wasn't all that traumatic. Jared was a smart kid and good looking enough to attract the attention of some of the girls. He wasn't really interested in them, though, so he just pretended that he was oblivious to the availability hints that some of them dropped.
Meanwhile, during his sophomore year, the baseball coach approached him. Having observed Jared play in gym class that spring, the coach asked him if he wanted to try out for the team. Although his long distance throwing arm didn't suit him for an outfielder, Jared was fast and threw accurately enough to play shortstop and, from time to time, second or third base. He also batted reasonably well so that, while he was never a star, he remained a starter for his entire senior year. And fortunately, once he was on the team, none of the guys ever brought up the "incident" again. They all showered together many times and if any of the guys were thinking about it, they kept it to themselves. They were a pretty decent bunch, actually.
But Jared thought about it all the time. He knew the truth, even if no one else was talking about it.
Along with baseball, Jared started working out in his school's weight room after practice was done. His coach obviously encouraged it, and Jared himself enjoyed the discipline. He also found that when he knew that the shower room was going to be empty, he could actually look forward to the feeling of working up a good sweat and then rinsing it all off.
So that's where Jared's habit of a later-than-average workout had originated. His nine o'clock arrival at the gym virtually guaranteed an empty shower room by the time he needed to be in there.
He knew, of course, that he was missing out on some of the friendships that he could have had. Even as late as he arrived, there were always guys just finishing up their workouts. Nice guys, it seemed like. Jared would have loved to cross paths with them in the locker room, strike up a conversation, head to the showers together, and then -- who knows -- maybe suggest getting a beer together. He just figured it wasn't meant to be.
Tonight, as usual, the locker room was all but empty as Jared entered, sweaty from a hard sprint on the treadmill. He was still visibly panting even after his two-minute slowdown, as he kicked off his sneakers and opened his locker. He was so accustomed to having the place to himself at this hour that he just pulled off his shirt and dropped his gym shorts and underwear without a second thought. Wrapping himself in a blue towel, he didn't even bother to relock his locker, just placed the lock inside and closed the door.
Just as he walked into the changing area outside the shower room, he heard a urinal flush in the men's room that was just around the corner. Moments later, a guy emerged from around the corner, readjusting his towel, clearly headed for the same destination as Jared. Surprised to see someone, Jared felt his heart skip a beat and fought off the urge to run the other way. And from the looks of things, he had startled the other guy as well.
But a second later, they recognized each other. The other guy spoke first, "Hey, how's it going? Jared, right?"
Jared looked at the handsome towel-clad guy for a moment and said, "Tom?" Instinctively from his habit at work, he extended his hand, and Tom shook it. It felt silly for a moment, two guys in towels shaking hands just outside a shower room. But a split second later, Jared got a wave of good feeling touching the other man's warm hand. He knew he should let go when the handshake was done, but somehow couldn't. And apparently, neither could Tom. Jared felt his heart race a little in a way it hadn't done in quite a while. Fortunately, nobody else was around to notice.
Finally, breaking the handshake and the silence, Jared said, "I though you moved away?"
"Yeah, I did," Tom answered, "About four months ago. But I couldn't find a gym I liked as much as this place. So I'm back."
"Cool, nice to see you."
"Thanks, you too." And then there was this pause. It was obvious to both of them why they were standing in towels just outside the shower room. Jared's mind raced, trying to think of an excuse to retreat back to the locker room. But there was nothing else to do but move together toward the showers, so that's what they did.
Under other circumstances, Jared probably would have left his towel on the bench in the changing room. But instinctively, he just wanted to keep it on as long as possible, if only to prolong the inevitable. Tom didn't shed his towel either, and the two men took what felt like a very long walk together to the far corner of the showers, each choosing a nozzle on a different wall.
As usual, Jared felt nervous and ashamed. If he were a big guy, or even just average size, this would be a great opportunity to proudly show off what he had in front of a guy he was interested in. And, of course, to enjoy looking at Tom as well.
Instead, Jared turned his back to Tom in order to remove his towel. He knew he was being rude, and probably sending Tom a signal that he wasn't interested. But what choice did he have? In his nervousness and shame, not to mention the cold, Jared could feel how completely his penis, small on the best of days, had retracted into his tight scrotum. So, facing away, he took off his towel and hooked it on the faucet of the nearest shower.
Jared planned to hurry through his shower so he could put his towel back on as fast as possible, and then run back to his locker, so his new buddy didn't spot his small penis.
But then, Tom, obviously making small talk to keep the conversation going, asked Jared, "Are you still living in the same place?" Jared craned his neck around, expecting to see Tom facing him, but he was facing away as well. And while Tom definitely had a nice butt, Jared felt a little disappointed that he couldn't catch a glimpse of his dick.
"Yeah, I'm pretty happy here," Jared answered, soaping himself without turning around. "I'm not leaving until they throw me out."
"This is a great neighborhood," Tom agreed, rinsing shampoo out of his hair. "I felt like I needed more space, but now I'm kind of regretting the move." He was also still facing the other side of the shower room.
It felt objectively weird to Jared, two grown men showering together while having a conversation, but turned in opposite directions. Maybe Tom was just shy, Jared thought. He was a tall guy, almost 6 feet, and seemed like just the kind of confident man with nothing to worry about. He must have big or at least average sized equipment. No doubt, he was just shy for his own reasons, nothing to do with size.
But once the idea had entered Jared's head, he couldn't let it go. So Jared started wondering, just for a moment, if maybe Tom had the same problem. It would be too much to hope for.
With the conversation on pause for the moment, Jared tried looking behind him to see if he could catch a glimpse, making sure to keep his small penis hidden. But this made it impossible to see anything but Tom's back and butt. Nice as they were, Jared longed to see more. He turned again, but this time at the exact same moment, he caught Tom doing the same thing. Their eyes met for a moment, and together they both turned uncomfortably away.
Now, Jared had to know, even if it meant taking the ultimate risk of being seen after working so hard to keep his secret hidden. He had left a previous gym when he began to suspect that some of the guys had a permanent smirk on their faces because they'd all seen what he was lacking down in his underwear. One guy had even started calling him "little buddy" as a joke. He never wanted to feel that way again.
Steeling up his courage, Jared turned his body a little bit, and noticed that Tom was starting to do the same. They had both begun to turn so that they were both facing into the same corner of the shower, away from the door, so that if anyone suddenly walked in, no one else could see anything. Jared hadn't felt so nervous yet so excited in a long, long time. The whole shower room seemed to be buzzing with nervous energy. They were both approaching the point of no return.
A moment later, Jared and Tom could just begin to see each other from the side. In fact, Jared could have just peeked and then turned away and been done with it. He could have then known Tom's size without having to reveal his own. But at that moment, it would have felt like a betrayal, and Jared couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he just took a deep breath and finished turning around.
The minute he did it, he was sorry. He knew what he was in for. Tom was probably this big dude who had never worried about his dick size in his entire life. When he saw Jared's dick, Jared knew that he would read in Tom's eyes what a big joke it was. Maybe, Tom and the other guys at the gym had even noticed that Jared had never showered with them like a normal guy would. He always picked a time when the shower was empty, got in and got out fast, and kept a towel nearby at all times in case it was needed. Jared was sure that Tom was now going to have a great time reporting back to the other guys that the mystery was solved. Having seen Jared's little boysized equipment, Tom and the others would know why Jared always hid it. And he'd soon need to find a new gym. His embarrassment was complete.
Jared looked into Tom's eyes hoping to find some small shred of compassion there. He was naked in front of this handsome man that he really liked, and just pleaded with his eyes as if to say, "Please don't tell anyone."
Tom's eyes stayed locked on Jared's as he also turned around. And like Jared, Tom's soft penis was also, by any reasonable standard, tiny for a grown man. Jared took in the sight for a few seconds to make sure he wasn't making a mistake. It was true -- Tom's penis had to be one of the smallest that Jared had ever seen. Maybe even smaller than his own.
The feeling of relief that passed through Jared almost overwhelmed him. Once he fully convinced himself that his eyes weren't deceiving him, he looked back up and into Tom's eyes, which were smiling back at him with what Jared interpreted as gratitude. And he guessed he must have looked pretty grateful to Tom, too.
He could feel the tension lifting between them, even as neither spoke a word. Each man's eyes were locked on the other man's face, and both were slowly coming to the realization that it was OK to be naked in front of this other man. That there was nothing to be ashamed of.
Jared could feel his heart pounding as he looked into Tom's eyes and found there not the joking contempt he had seen all too often in another man's eyes. It was really OK to be naked together with this man. And as he thought he could read a little bit of embarrassment in Tom's face, he desperately wanted to reassure Tom with his eyes that he had nothing to feel ashamed about.
At that moment, Jared's heart started pounding in a way he hadn't felt for many years. He felt so open and revealed in front of this handsome naked man who was looking back at him, obviously nervous but taking the risk of revealing himself as well. A few times, his eyes scanned downward on Tom's body to take in the beautiful sight of his naked chest and stomach, and then to look again at the other man's small cut penis, which reminded him of his own. Each time he looked down, Tom looked down at Jared's own small penis. And when his eyes returned to Jared's face, Jared was sure he could see the fear of rejection in Tom's eyes. And he knew that his own eyes must also be betraying the same emotion.
Their eyes met and at last both men began to find the courage to hold the connection and not break eye contact. Jared felt so torn. He desperately wanted this connection, but he felt so vulnerable from his experience as a boy in the high school showers. It took every ounce of courage he possessed to keep his eyes locked on Tom's handsome face and risk ultimate rejection once again. And as he did so, he thought he could see the same struggle in Tom's eyes, the joy of sharing nakedness with a man while at the same time battling the fear of being rejected yet again for his small masculine equipment.
And then, as the water continued to run over their naked shoulders and backs, the impossible happened and the two men began to break through their fear. Each saw in the other's eyes that, far from being rejected, he was being fully accepted even as his inadequacy as a man was clearly revealed and on display. For Jared, a feeling of relief he had never felt before washed through him that made him almost want to burst into tears. How long had he and Tom both been hiding from the world in shame, carrying this burden all by themselves? How long had they both been pretending to each other and to the rest of the world that as grown men they both had it all together sexually, with nothing to fear? And all the time, each was carrying and hiding his own secret feeling of inadequacy that no one could ever know.
And now, what could be more natural than this? Two men just standing naked and unashamed together in front of each other. They both just stood there, taking in each other's nakedness, each second daring to feel more and more comfortable and even proud as men, and sharing that first-ever feeling together. And as they did, Jared began to feel the pounding of his blood through his heart moving into the rest of his body as, without touching himself at all, his penis began to pulsate and engorge.
He could feel it starting to happen and felt powerless to stop it. At that moment, Jared wanted Tom to see his erection, small as it was. But if that happened, then all doubt about his substandard size would be removed forever. Could he risk that? But with the intense feeling he was starting to have, he knew he couldn't hold it down for long. And then he saw that Jared was struggling in the same way that he was. His penis was pulsating and engorging, too. And then, at the same moment, it just happened, and both men penises started growing and began to stiffen into full erections, both under 4 inches in length. Jared's was very short but had a little more girth to it, though he was sure that no man would ever call it thick. Tom's penis was slightly longer than Jared's, but much thinner, about the width of a finger.
The stood there together for a moment without speaking, just taking in the sight of each other's small but pulsing erections. It was Tom who finally broke the silence. "I guess I'm never gonna make a living as a porn star, huh?" he said at last.
Jared said slowly, "Yeah, me neither." He waited a beat and added, "Sure does feel good though."
"Dude, yeah," said Tom, "It sure does." Then, "It's been a while for sure." Then, "I hope I don't..." Then, "Oh, no, I'm gonna..." Tom turned toward the wall, and leaned against it for a minute. Jared could see he was struggling. "I can't....I can't hold it..."
Jared put his arm on Tom's shoulder and said, "It's OK, buddy."
With that, Tom doubled over against the shower wall and held his penis as wave after wave of pulsation shot through him. His white cum spilled over the edge of his fingers into his other waiting hand.
Still touching Tom's shoulder, Jared could not only see but feel the intensity that racked the other man's body. Suddenly, leaning into Tom's side and facing the same shower wall, Jared grabbed his own penis and began rubbing the head with his finger and thumb in a practiced way. A few rubs in, Jared whispered to Tom, "Dude, I'm gonna...", then let go with a muffled moan as his boysized penis emptied a mansized load.
Leaning into each other, both men panted as their orgasms subsided. Despite the risk, Tom put his arm across Jared's shoulder, and the shorter man wrapped his own around Tom's waist.
They must have stayed that way for only a minute, but it felt like a whole universe of time. Eventually, though, the world invaded. Hearing a door open in the locker room, the two men stepped apart quickly as an employee that both of them knew passed by the open doorway to the shower room and headed past it into the men's room. Fortunately, he didn't appear to notice them. Still feeling electrified, Jared watched as Tom turned and shut off the shower. Jared did the same. Without saying another word, both men wrapped themselves in their towels and returned to their separate lockers in different rows.
Jared got dressed, feeling like he had just come back from a trip to Mars. He got dressed and as he was tying his shoes, he realized that he couldn't let Tom just walk out the door without at least a word of goodbye. Then he looked up and Tom was there. Wow, he looks great in clothes, too, Jared thought. "Hey, Jared," he said "I was thinking of grabbing a beer. Are you up to anything else right now?"
"Um, no -- I mean nothing. A beer sounds great."
Tom said, "I used to like the Dubliner, but I think they're closed for renovations. You know anyplace else around here we could go?"
"Hmmmmm," said Jared, "Not too sure...but.... I've got some beer in the fridge, if you feel like coming over."
"Uh, sure," said Tom, "I mean if it's OK. If it's not too late or anything."
"No it's cool."
Tom said, "Let me just get the rest of my stuff together. Meet you out by the desk?"
"Sure," said Jared.
He had never felt so sure in his life.
To be continued...
Thanks for reading. If you liked the story, please contact me at judestjude2357@gmail.com. I'd be glad to hear any feedback you have about how to make this story and series better going forward. Thanks again! TJ