Medical History

MEDICAL HISTORY Part of the 'Butt Monkey' series of stories by Robert Furlong robert.furlong@rocketmail.com Find my older stories at screeve.org

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"Okay, Rob. What seems to be the problem?"

My doctor, James Courtney, threw me a weary look as he sat himself down in front of me alongside his desk. No doubt he'd had his fill of the local hypochondriacs and nutters today.

"Well, it's a bit of strange one, James," I said, hesitantly.

We had, quite a while ago, despatched with the formality of using each other's surnames after I'd ran into him a few times in the changing rooms after squash.

"Surprise me," he said with a smile which looked peculiarly tired on a face which was a good few years younger than mine. I noticed that, above his sideburns, his luxuriant auburn hair was just beginning to be peppered with grey.

"Well, you remember my wife and I divorced... quite a while ago?"

He nodded. Of course he did. He'd had to prescribe me a course of sleeping pills and antidepressants as soon as he'd started here, almost before he'd time to pull on his white coat and stethoscope.

"Well," I said, pausing to feel my cheeks colour a little as I prepared what I wanted to say. "My sexual interests have taken a... kind of... unusual direction in recent months."

"Could you be more specific?" he asked.

Okay, Robert, I thought. Time to bite the bullet. You've rehearsed this in your head so many times and you know exactly what you want to say.

"I'm developing an interest in other men," I said flatly.

There. It was out. That felt better, didn't it?

Didn't it?

James nodded, thoughtfully.

Perhaps he was a little too young to deal with this. Maybe I should have gone to Dr Darvill instead. I'd worried that old, traditional Dr Darvill would have guffawed at the absurdity of my problem and said it was nothing a daily cold shower and a few rounds on the golf course couldn't sort out, but maybe –

"That's not completely unexpected," James asserted.

"Not unexpected?" I asked in surprise. "You think I'm the type to have gay tendencies...?"

He chuckled, but with a warmth rather than with humour.

"I'm not saying that. It's just that, after a divorce – especially a bitter and acrimonious one – some men find that they feel disillusioned with the opposite sex and, since viewing homosexual material is so easy on the internet these days, it's natural that you might feel a curiosity towards –"

"It's a bit more than that," I interrupted. "And, in any case, we split up years ago. This isn't just some rebound thing."

He nodded. "Okay. So what is it?"

I hesitated again. This was proving to be just as difficult as I'd feared.

"I have a bit of thing about... erm..."

How could one best put this?

After a few seconds I ventured: "other men's bums."

"Specifically their bums? Not their genitals, their –"

"Very specifically their bums," I affirmed.

"You want to have anal sex with another man?" he asked.

"Perhaps in time," I admitted, feeling a little dirtied by saying that to him. "At least... it's not out of the question. But my interest has mainly been centred around..."

He threw me a quizzical look, his eyebrows furrowed.

Come on, Rob, I urged myself. You've come this far...

"Sniffing them... licking them."

His curious expression broadened into surprise.

I had surprised him. So there, Dr Courtney.

"The cheeks," he asked. "Or...?"

"Between the cheeks," I said, with a slow nod.

"Right..." he said, nodding back. "That's quite a specific fantasy..."

"It's not just a fantasy," I confessed.

"You've acted on it?"

I didn't want to get into the whole story of Guy and me in the hotel – in the sterile setting of the surgery it would have sounded too far-fetched and implausible that such a thing could have happened accidentally – so I told him simply that I'd had "an experience" with another man which I'd found highly arousing.

"And since then, you've started wondering what it would be like to repeat what you experienced?"

"Very much so," I nodded. "I've actually found it difficult to think about anything else."

"Did you ever do anything like this with your wife or any other woman? Did you ever even fantasize about such a thing?"

I shook my head. "No, never. It wouldn't be something that would interest me at all. With women, I've always practiced straightforward vaginal sex, at least when it was offered to me."

He nodded, throwing me a smile and a shrug which I took to mean I wasn't the only one who had experienced such unwillingness in the bedroom.

He said, "You said you might like to move onto anal intercourse with another man...?"

"Perhaps at some point."

"So what about a relationship with a man? An emotional as well as sexual relationship?"

"No!" I said, realising immediately I had sounded rather too emphatic. Calming my voice, I went on: "I don't want that at all. I still want a woman in my life – that hasn't changed – I just want..."

"Sex with a man as well?"

"Yes," I agreed. "Just occasionally, maybe. But it's clearly something which attracts me..."

James thought for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision about what to do.

"While it's not unusual for a man of your age to discover a side to his sexuality which he wasn't previously aware of, I'd like to examine you – if that's okay – to rule out any physiological reasons for what you're currently experiencing."

"Yeah... I was hoping you'd do that. You mean hormonal changes, that kind of stuff?"

"Exactly," he said with a comforting smile. Like this was all perfectly normal. Like all guys my age go through a phase of wanting to lick each other's butts.

"Could you undress, please?" he asked. "I'll need you naked in a moment, but for now you can keep on your underwear."

"Oh..."

I hadn't realised that he'd want me to strip completely. It was suddenly obvious that he'd want to check my balls for abnormalities: why hadn't that occurred to me?

"It's okay," he said, with a reassuring air. "I'll just need you undressed for a moment or so."

"Sorry," I spluttered, standing up. "I'm... er... not really that comfortable about people seeing me naked."

"No-one will come in here," he said calmly. "No-one can see through the windows. You have complete privacy in here."

I nodded, taking off my jacket. "Yeah, okay. Sorry. It's just a thing I have."

As I undressed, I thought back to a school medical I'd had in my teens in the nurse's office, a room not much bigger than this one. Like this room, it had smelt vaguely of latex and disinfectant, and like today there had been a tingling coldness to the air which had made undressing seem even more unpleasant than it might otherwise have been.

For some reason, probably due to some cost-cutting drive, that year they were doing medicals in small groups and so four of us boys had been herded into the small office together. We'd been told to strip to our 'pants', as they called the white saggy standard-issue school shop briefs we all wore in those days, and had lined up in front of the local authority doctor who had looked even more cheerless about being there than we had.

I remember glancing at the other boys – none of whom I really knew because our year-group had been sorted alphabetically rather than by class – and noticing that I, as usual, had by far the most prominent bulge in my underwear. The boy at the end of the line had been a big lad with a growth of hair across his chest, and yet even his underpants showed only the smallest suggestion of what was contained inside.

Here we go again, I thought.

I knew the drill; everyone did. We were going to be asked to strip so he could check our balls, and everyone was going to look at how big my penis was, just like they always did.

The three of them would have willies like their little fingers, while mine, even in its limpest state, would hang halfway down to my knees looking as thick as my forearm. They'd have bollocks like wrinkled walnuts, while mine would stick out, blown up to the size of a pair of over-ripe plums. They'd have only a modest fuzz of hair down there, while my pubes would burst forth like some dense, tangled undergrowth from my belly button down past my scrotum.

As I'd stood there in front of the school doctor, I'd felt deeply ashamed. I knew that my genitals had grown disproportionately larger than the other boys because I masturbated so often whereas they were able to resist their urges. After all, what other explanation could there be?

Every morning, as I got dressed in my bedroom, it was getting progressively worse. I was finding it more and more difficult to pack myself into my underwear, struggling to get the flimsy gusset of my briefs to contain my testicles and penis – ideally together – in a way which wasn't too uncomfortable. It was becoming more and more of a challenge to close the fly of my school trousers over my unsightly bulge and I'd had to endure the embarrassment of asking my mother to replace my zip, not just once but twice. And in the classroom, during lessons, I was having to ask to leave the room to adjust myself every time I could feel I was beginning to develop an erection.

And yet, in spite of the obvious effect it was having on me, try as I might, I simply couldn't stop playing with myself.

Each night in my bed, no matter how ardently I forced myself to think of other things, my penis would slowly stiffen under the bedclothes, steadily lengthening and thickening until it had outgrown its foreskin and its pink exposed head would dribble clear liquid inside my pyjamas. Whatever I then chose to do – whichever strategy I tried to use against it – the outcome was always the same. Within minutes my hand would be working at full speed underneath the tent I'd made with my bedsheets, my pyjamas would be hitched down around my thighs, a film of sweat would be forming on my forehead and a guilty smile would be slowly broadening on my mouth.

I knew full well what I was doing – my mother and brother had warned me of it often enough – and that only 'bad boys' shared my forbidden pleasures. I'd heard all about such bad boys, for many years, oblivious that I would one day secretly share their company. Bad boys started out as good boys, just like I had, but when their peckers started growing hard, they'd find themselves unable to stop rubbing them.

Soon those boys had rubbed themselves so much that their genitals had grown, like mine, too big to for their underwear. Soon their balls were so swollen with their seed that they would chafe, like mine, against their thighs. Soon they had sprouted so much hair down there that it had spread, like mine, right up into their bum cracks.

I knew full well that every time I masturbated, my organ would grow a little bit bigger. That every time I released my seed by my own hand, my balls would refill to be that little bit plumper. And that the more I gratified myself in such a way, the more hair I would grow down there as a way of telling the world how dirty I was.

And yet, I simply couldn't stop. In every other respect, I regarded myself as a good boy. I tried hard at school, did well in my exams and fulfilled all of my chores around the house. I steered clear of girls and was respectful to my elders. I even ate all my greens. On top of that, though, I liked to rub my penis whenever it got hard – which it very often did – and that, by some cruel decree, seemed to be all that mattered.

So here I was in my school medical, alongside three lads I didn't even know, when the inevitable happened: "Right, boys. Take off your pants, please."

And so we did. We yanked them down and stepped out of them, all cringing with embarrassment. I blushed when I realised my briefs had a noticeable stiff patch on them from when I'd nipped to the boys' toilets during Maths and had taken the opportunity of finding an empty cubicle (and having forgotten about the medical) to quietly attend to myself. Glancing at the other lads, though, I saw that their underwear was – for a variety of other reasons – a lot worse for wear than mine and had felt that rare combination of relief and disgust.

However, the worst was yet to come.

Inevitably, as all boys do when they find themselves naked together, we glanced to see what each other was brandishing. Even the doctor ran his gaze across our row of genitals, his eyebrows betraying a flicker of surprise when he got to mine.

The other boys were all much of a muchness: they were clearly the sort of good boys who had accepted what their penises were for and what they were strictly not for. I don't remember specifics, but they were all as they should be: small and insubstantial; foreskins nicely puckered; testicles discreetly tucked away; all framed by the merest dusting of downy hair. All exactly as nature intended; all very proper.

And then there was me.

I stood there, staring down at the carpet with my cheeks burning. I was a thin youth, pale and scrawny, and yet emerging from between my legs were genitals which would look generous even on a grown man; the sort of thick, hairy cock and heavy, prominent bollocks one might expect on a great, looming brute. My cock was so long and fat that my foreskin wasn't long enough to cover the head completely: the tip of it, dry and pink and with its broad slit exposed, peered out from its gaping end.

There was nothing I could do to hide what I had: it was visible for everyone to see and so that everyone could deduce from its abundance what I enjoyed doing to it so much.

One the lads whispered, "Look at Furlong's knob! Jesus..."

Someone else whispered, "They call him Footlong!"

I blushed a deeper shade of red.

The doctor would know that, of the four boys in front of him, one of us was a compulsive masturbator. He'd already deduced, I was sure, which one of us went to sleep most nights soaked in his own seed. Which one of us directed the shower head towards the curtain most mornings so that his parents couldn't hear the slapping of his wrist against his thigh. Which one of us habitually sneaked our mother's catalogue up to his bedroom so he could jerk his foreskin back and forth while he pored over the women's lingerie pages.

I glanced up at the doctor and he threw me a small smile. In retrospect, I realise he was trying to let me know I was okay; that it didn't matter a jot what was between my legs; that I was different through no fault of my own. But at the time I saw it as a sneer. I imagined he had a big red stamp which he would apply to my medical record when we'd filed out from the room: CHRONIC MASTURBATOR.

He walked along the line towards me, holding each pair of balls while the lads attached to them forced a cough.

When he got to me, he made a joke. He probably thought it would ease the tension I was feeling and make the others feel less inadequate. But it was a line which the boys in my school would use to taunt me for months thereafter.

"I'm not sure I'll be able to get my hand around these!"

The others tittered while I went purple and stared downwards. He might as well have announced to the assembled crowd that I had balls like a bull elephant.

He cupped a hand with some difficulty around my testicles and gently fondled them as he manoeuvred them into the required position.

Before he could ask me to cough, I felt the unthinkable begin to happen. The sensation of the doctor's fingers on my balls, cold and mechanical in itself, was having a profound effect on me. In front of the other three boys, flopping against the doctor's wrist, my cock began to swell.

I glared down at it, mortified, and saw the thick ridge at the base of its helmet becoming more pronounced and the foreskin slowly easing back to expose even more of the swelling pink head. The shaft of it was beginning to thicken and I could see it lengthening steadily, pushing forwards against the doctor's wrist.

I couldn't believe this was happening! What could I do to stop it?

I tried to think of all the things which I disliked; things which upset me. My brother and his god-awful friend Aiden. Having to kiss my ancient Aunty Ruth who had bits of skin sticking to her prickly beard. The smell of the dead badger we'd found half-decayed in the woods.

Nothing I could muster up had any effect. My cock had, as usual, a mind of its own.

The doctor seemed to notice my reaction and said, hastily, "Just give me a quick cough and you can get dressed again. There's a good lad."

Jesus, it was starting to stand up.

However uncomfortable I'd felt a few moments ago, standing there showing everyone I had the cock and balls of a compulsive jerk-artist, as my brother often put it, would pale into insignificance compared to what I was about to feel.

It would be round the school in minutes.

"Furlong got a hard-on when the doctor touched his nuts."

"He kept looking at our dicks and next thing he had a stiffie."

"He wanted the doctor to wank him off."

The doctor looked up at me, uncertain as to why I was hesitating. "Come on, son. Just a quick cough and then you can pull your pants back on."

I tried to cough but found that my throat was too choked up.

I tried again but now I had the image of being masturbated by the doctor in my head. Him saying, "Come on, son. Now that your balls have grown, we've just got to collect some spunk from you. There's a good lad."

I tried another cough, desperate for this to end, but it came out as a grunt. I imagined him holding a sample pot in front of my cock, pounding at my shaft with an experienced rhythm and grinning at the others while they gawped on. Me staring back at them, scarlet from the neck up, while my balls released thick jets of my strong-smelling seed into his glass jar.

I forced the loudest cough I'd ever done and the doctor jumped back. My cock stood upward at a forty-five degree angle, the foreskin continuing to retract from the reddening head. I could smell its crisp, sexual tang starting to waft around the room as it gradually hardened.

The other boys, mercifully, seemed oblivious to its misdemeanours. They were nudging each other and looking over at the doctor's notes on his desk to see what he'd written about them.

"That's great," the doctor said, quickly, strolling back across the room. "No problems at all for any of you. You can all get dressed."

I turned my back to the others and hitched up my semen-spattered briefs as quickly as I could. I directed my cock up towards my hip, giving it space to lengthen further along the waistband as I grabbed for my trousers.

One of my balls was hanging out through the leg of my underpants but I didn't care. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. To go somewhere people couldn't see that I had, as my mother had once put it, depravity between my legs.

Now, standing in front of Dr James Courtney in my boxer shorts, I felt another flush of discomfort which I knew to be a leftover from that unpleasant experience and from the years of hearing negative things about my genitals when I was growing up.

After James had finished running a few standard checks on my eyes, ears and throat, had listened to my breathing and heartbeat with his stethoscope and tested my reflexes, he asked me to take off my shorts.

The memory of the school medical flashed back to me again. I hadn't thought about it in years and yet being here, in this small consultation room, had brought it back to me as vividly as if it had happened last week. I wondered why I had imagined being masturbated by the doctor – the male doctor – in front of the other boys. Had that been an early foreshadowing of what was I was now going through? The first inconspicuous swell of a wave that was only now crashing onto the beach?

I pulled down my boxer shorts and tossed them onto the chair with the rest of my clothes. They weren't the best pair I owned: if I'd known James was going to ask me to strip I'd have worn my stripy blue pair which had the prestige of being granted Jake's seal of approval. (He'd once seen them when my dressing gown hadn't been fastened up properly and had proclaimed them, with some surprise, to be "not too bad", before correcting his verdict to "well, not as grodey as everything else you wear.")

My cock drooped down in front of my thighs, looking slightly more shrivelled than usual in the chill of the room, but nevertheless making me tingle with embarrassment from its conspicuous length and thickness. I was by now well aware that my size revealed nothing about my sexual habits, but I was still very conscious of the way the swollen head made an obvious helmet shape underneath my foreskin, and the way my balls hung down so heavily, as if announcing to the younger man how bloated and full with my semen they were.

I also knew, of course, that James wouldn't make any kind of judgements about me based on the huge phallus I happened to be bearing, but I nevertheless felt very self-aware as I stood there, naked, in front of him. It was so excruciating, almost humiliating, for a guy like me – a quiet, gentle man; average and unassuming in every other way – to have something I still subconsciously regarded as gratuitously vulgar and which seemed to have almost bestial proportions, sprouting like some third misshapen limb from between my legs.

James didn't grant my manhood more than a fleeting glance and managed to resist greeting it with one of the usual old chestnuts: "You don't get many of those to the pound," or "You'll have someone's eye out with that." I figured he must have seen just about every size and shape of male appendages it was possible to see, or perhaps he was rather well-built himself in that area and so its unusual size didn't really figure on his radar. I tried to remember if I'd noticed how he was packed when I'd seen him in the changing rooms after I'd played squash, but back then I'd been oblivious to the appeal of the male body and wouldn't have picked up on such things.

After snapping himself into some latex gloves, he came across to me and apologised in advance if his hands were cold.

I smiled stupidly, feeling painfully self-conscious to be naked in front of him.

He took my penis in one hand and lifted it away from my balls. Again, I was relieved that he didn't make some trite joke about how large it felt between his fingers, but just cupped my scrotum with his other hand and gently examined each of my well-stocked testicles in turn for unusual signs.

It felt good to have my cock and balls fondled like this by another man – surprisingly good, in fact. Since being a teenager in the school nurse's office, I'd had many years to perfect the art of controlling myself when I was aroused by something, but even with all that practice I found it quite a struggle not to respond to James's remarkably nimble fingers.

I was reminded of being masturbated, many years earlier, by Carl, the husband of my ex-wife's college friend, who had followed me into the bathroom. That had also felt good, and I would probably have been enjoyed returning the favour if I hadn't climaxed first. It hadn't occurred to me at the time to wank him off as his hand was working on me. It would have felt almost fraternal to have done that together; a mutual indulgence of our raging appetites as two excessively horny men.

I'd never beaten another man off in my life and I suddenly felt that it was something that I'd missed out on. It would be oddly satisfying to pleasure another man by doing something as simple as working my hand up and down his cock. It would be fascinating to watch his expression change and feel his cock growing steadily harder as my rhythm gradually increased, and to have his hips start bucking back and forth as he unloaded his pent-up cargo all over my chest.

James glanced up at me and at first I thought he had found something troubling. I realised, though, that he was throwing me an odd look because my penis had just about doubled in size in his hand and the shrivelled pink head was slowly easing itself through the round opening of my foreskin.

"Sorry," I muttered, feeling my cheeks flush. At least this was a bit more private than when it had happened at school.

I tried to joke to ease my awkwardness: "It likes to do that when it knows it shouldn't."

"I think that's a habit they all share," he said with a smile.

I had to think about something else. I forced myself to start planning for Christmas. What was I going to buy Jake? Did he want an iPhone or iPad or something? Had he mentioned that he wanted one, or did he tell me he'd just bought one? Why couldn't he just want a motorbike or something else I could understand?

James's fingers were really digging into each side of my balls as he checked both sides of them for any abnormalities. In spite of the fact I knew he was probably hunting for tumours, the firm grip of his hand felt extremely arousing. He was being surprisingly rough with me but I wasn't too concerned: as a fellow male with a presumably similar, though probably smaller, pair of balls of his own to practise on, I had no reason to fear he might push too hard and hurt me.

How great would it be to be kneeling face to face with him on my bed, both pumping each other's cock and fondling each other's balls? Our bodies would be similar, but so fascinatingly different – for a start, as a redhead James's pubes would be ginger. We'd bask in the combining fug of our sweat, enjoying the sharper whiffs our oozing cocks, as the rhythm of our right hands grew faster and faster. And perhaps, as we grinned at each other in our shared pleasure, our left hands would creep beyond each other's balls, our fingers edging forwards between each other's legs, reaching out towards the hot, hairy clefts just beyond our touch.

I wondered how James might smell down there... how his cute little doctor's butt-crack would taste.

"Your testicles are obviously quite an erogenous area for you," James said as we both watched my ripening helmet slide completely out through my foreskin as my cock continued to harden and grow.

"I'm really sorry," I said again, mentally observing that I must have a thing about developing erections during medical examinations. At least this time I didn't have three boys standing alongside me.

"Don't worry about it," he said, standing up and grinning over at me. "It happens to a lot of men during medicals."

He looked down at my organ as it continued to harden and I saw a trace of what might have been appreciation in his eyes. Once again, though, he didn't offer a comment on its size.

"If I could just ask you to turn around, Rob. I'd better check your prostate while I'm at it."

Oh God. I really hadn't bargained on this.

I shuffled around and presented my backside to him. In spite of my curiosity about penetrating another man, I didn't feel at all ready to be penetrated myself; not even by my doctor's finger.

He walked over to his drawer and took out a small tube. After squirting some of the clear gel onto his glove and working it up and down the length of his middle finger, he came back over to me and stood alongside me.

I tried to see what he'd smeared on his finger but he told me it was just some KY jelly. Seeing me draw a blank, he muttered, "You don't know what KY is?"

I shook my head.

"Well, if you're going to be having sex with other men, Rob, I rather suspect you soon will."

After asking me to bend forwards a little, he used his thumb and forefinger to prize apart my butt-cheeks and eased his slickened finger into my anus. The gel he'd applied felt cold but allowed him to enter me easily: he could push his finger far deeper than I was able to when I was playing with myself.

I'd have to buy a few tubes of this KY jelly. As he'd suggested, it could prove very useful.

When he'd pushed his finger into me as deep as it could go, I involuntarily let out a gasp.

He smiled. "That's just about got it! You can stand up again."

After I'd straightened up, we both looked down at my cock, pointing outwards from my body; the two of us watching with interest as it rose rapidly to its highest incline and the shaft of it thickened to its full girth. Its head was swelling up and becoming so fat that it was glistening with the skin stretched taut and its colour was darkening to a deep shade of crimson.

I looked at him in horror, shocked by how my dramatically penis was responding to him having his finger up my bum, but he just smiled in reassurance. "It's all right, Rob. Really, it's okay..."

He jiggled his finger around inside me, feeling around for my prostate, and I gasped again. It came out more like a sigh or a pant. My cock was almost bursting in its excitement and I was finding it difficult to suppress the urge to touch it. I knew that if I were to rub the throbbing head or grab the vein-raised shaft, I would start climaxing profusely all over his cupboards and drawers.

"Squat down for me a bit," he ordered, gently pulling my shoulder downward with his free hand.

I did as he wanted and gasped another, "Aah!" as his finger delved further into my bowels and his knuckles pressed into both sides of my stretched ring.

My cock was pounding at the feel of him inside me, my balls pumped up to their maximum and dangling down between my open legs as they readied for orgasm. I gritted my teeth to hold my climax back: only the thought of how crushingly mortified I would feel if I were to start squirting my thick white ropes of seed across the surgery during a rectal examination was keeping me from doing so. How I would ever face James after squash again? How could I ever return to the surgery?

James chuckled. "I would view your enjoyment as a good omen, Rob. Perhaps a sign of things to come, if you'll... er... forgive my choice of wording."

He pulled his finger out of me with an unpleasant wet slurp and, making a well-practiced flick of his wrist, pulled off both gloves to be disposed of.

As I stood there, hunched and recovering my breath, I could smell my own arse from his finger quite distinctly in the air. He must also be well aware of it. It wasn't very strong but it was instantly recognisable: faintly pungent and teeming with my own raunchy, sexual musk.

"Well there's good news on two counts," James said brightly as if oblivious to my anal whiff. He turned to search through the top drawer in the cabinet behind him for something.

"The first is that you obviously enjoy the touch of another man, so we know that any homosexual feelings you're experiencing at the minute have a psychological basis."

"Is that a good thing?" I asked, as he worked down through the drawers beneath, trying to find whatever it was he was looking for.

"I think so," he said. "It proves that you're comfortable being with another man in a sexual context... that you've worked through the issues a lot of men instinctively have about having their bodies touched by a member of their own sex."

He bent down to search through his bottom drawer. His white jacket rode up exposing his pert, round backside in his tight, black trousers. The hem between his buttocks was riding up into his cheeks, pulling the briefs he was so clearly wearing deep inside his arse-crack.

"And that's a good thing?" I repeated, feeling my mouth becoming dry.

"Of course," he said, fumbling through the drawer.

What a beautiful backside he had. I imagined having my nose pressed between those cheeks; sniffing at the material where the hemlines of his briefs were coming together. Getting a whiff of his most private and personal flavour just as he had mine.

"It shows that whatever you're going through isn't just physiological, and that's the second bit of good news," he called back to me. "There's nothing physically wrong with you which could cause these changes. Everything checks out as perfectly normal."

My cock was still at full size and a dribble of thick, clear liquid was oozing from the slit at its tip. I could clearly visualise pulling his trousers and underpants down and pushing my face between his amazing butt-cheeks. I wondered if the hair inside his arse-crack would be auburn like his hair. I wondered how assiduously he washed himself; how strong his scent back there would be.

"Aha... found it!" he called out, as something clattered inside the drawer.

I'd crouch behind him, licking between his cheeks, and then stand up so that my erection was level with his spit-soaked furry cleft. I'd grab his hips and ease my bloated helmet into him, right where I knew his tiny, untouched hole would be. He'd call out, "Yeah... fuck me, Rob! Fuck my arsehole!" And I'd slowly ease myself into him, watching the hungry mouth of his anus consume inch after inch of my length and sniffing as the crisp, sterile air of the room was sullied again; this time by his own indelicate odour.

I'd push myself right up into him with my engorged, throbbing cock; boring into him far more thickly and deeply than his finger had me.

My cock was now aching painfully, demanding my attention. The head had darkened to a deep, angry purple and the end of it had swollen so fat that the thin strip of skin underneath the slit was pulling the tip into two distinct lobes. I'd never seen it take on that shape before. I seriously needed release.

James stood up and turned to me, smiling. "Funny how things end up getting wedged in so deeply at the back!"

"Er... sorry?"

Jesus – had he read my mind?

"This!" he said, showing me a leaflet. It was a small pamphlet, somewhat crumpled from where it had been pushed to the back of the drawer, and seemed to be a health leaflet intended for gay men.

He glanced at my nudity and his gaze lingered for a moment on my flagrant erection, its distended head glistening with my ooze. "Sorry, Rob. I should have said – you can get dressed now."

"Oh right. Thanks."

I walked over to the chair with my inflamed organ wobbling up and down. A drip of the clear liquid dribbled onto the lino floor making a small puddle of goo.

James grabbed a box of antiseptic wipes and knelt down to clean up my mess while I pulled on my boxer shots.

"Sorry," I muttered, feeling my cheeks blush scarlet.

"It's not a problem," he said brightly, disposing of the tissue in the bio-hazard bin. And then, seeing how flushed my face was, smiled to reassure me. "Don't be embarrassed! You're going to need to get used to a lot of stray liquids and unfamiliar smells if you're going to enjoy homosexual sex."

"I'm quite looking forward to all the liquids and smells," I informed him, struggling to tuck my cock into my boxer shorts without triggering an orgasm. I knew I was still precariously close to a very copious climax: were that to happen, it would take a lot more than a wet wipe to mop up my outpouring of strong-smelling semen.

"That sort of thing doesn't bother me at all," I went on, managing to tuck myself into my shorts without rubbing the head too vigorously against the material. "In fact, I think it's the unfamiliarity of it that excites me."

"So why do you look so flushed?"

I angled my cock diagonally upwards in my shorts, aware that it was making a wet, sticky patch up near my hip. It was pulling the material upwards, making each of my balls hang down through the separate legs of the shorts. In spite of how ridiculous I looked, I gave up trying to reposition it and grabbed for my trousers.

"I'm just blushing," I began to explain, pushing one leg and then the other into my trousers and pulling them on, "Because of a few longstanding body issues I have. I'm quite well-endowed and... er... well..."

He nodded. I suppose there was no point in him pretending he hadn't noticed. The thing had almost gone off in his hand.

I went on, "I suppose... sometimes I'm not very comfortable with it."

"Well, be that as it may," he said, putting the leaflet on his desk, "in every physical respect you're in very good health. You could benefit from taking more exercise and cutting down on the booze, but that applies to just about anyone."

I reached for my shirt, thankful that my feeling of imminent climax was abating. The stiffness of my cock seemed to have eased, albeit ever so slightly, although it was still making a lewd-looking ridge along the front of my trousers.

Without apparently noticing it, he continued, "Whatever homosexual urges you're current experiencing must – I would guess – be coming from some subconscious need that you haven't been fulfilling."

"What subconscious need could make me want to push my face into another man's bum?" I asked, buttoning up the front of my shirt.

He shrugged and sat down in his chair.

"I assume you've researched this a little on the internet?" he asked. Seeing me nod, he went on, "So you've no doubt found out that what you're interested in is called 'rimming'?"

"It was the first thing I found out about it," I told him as I knotted my tie. "It was nice to be able to put a name to it, but even more of a relief to find that other people enjoy doing this too. That I'm not the only one."

He smiled. "You're certainly not the only one, but rimming is generally restricted to the realms of homosexual foreplay."

"Not exclusively," I told him. "You don't realise how many straight men are into it, until you start probing. If... er... you'll forgive my choice of wording this time."

He nodded, throwing me a small smirk. "So what is it that attracts you, if you don't mind me asking?"

I thought for a few seconds before trying to begin to explain the pervasive allure of my fellow men's rears. I sat down on the chair and started pulling on my socks, thankful that my ungratified erection was becoming much softer.

"I don't know exactly," I began, after I'd pulled on one of them. "Having my face down there... pushing my nose and mouth between another guy's bum cheeks. The smell, the taste of a man back there is so exciting... so erotic. But just the fact of having my face so close to his bum... I don't know what it is about doing that which should arouse me so much..."

I thought back to one of the books I had read in the library and added, "Maybe the fact it's such a taboo place... a part of the body we're supposed to regard as disgusting... and I'm pushing my tongue into it..."

"It might not seem like it, Rob, but I think what you're describing is a very natural response," he said, nodding slowly. "It's clearly documented that some people experience arousal through oral contact with another person's anus. It's one of the most intimate sexual acts one person can perform on another and is also, arguably, one of the most intense."

"Is that right?" I asked.

"I'm no sex therapist by any stretch of the imagination, but rimming is a way for you to say to someone, on a purely subconscious level, 'I want all of you. Every single part of you excites me.' And the person you're rimming is telling you, by letting you do that to them, 'I'm totally yours. No part of me is off-limits to you.' Such implied mutual acceptance is, to some deep innate part of the brain, a powerful turn-on."

I nodded, still seated and without my shoes on, surprised by how much sense he was making.

"Apart from that," he went on, "as you've just experienced, the anus and surrounding tissues are richly endowed with nerve endings highly sensitive to erotic touch. For some reason, perhaps lost in our evolutionary past, we're meant to find that area highly arousing."

"But why am I so fascinated by the idea of doing it with other men?"

"Hmm... that's an interesting question," he said, staring past me as if trying to figure out the answer. "It's as if your normal sexual interests have been flipped one hundred and eighty degrees: from the female and the vaginal, towards the male and the anal. Perhaps you have a need for intimacy with another male which you craved when you were younger...?"

I nodded, reaching for one of my shoes. "I suppose that could be my brother. But I never wanted to do anything sexual with him..."

"Whatever issues you had with your brother, it could be that your desire for affection is being expressed sexually now even though it had no sexual component at the time."

"Don't you think it's more likely that I'm excited by doing something that I see as 'wrong'?" I insisted. "I mean, rimming in itself has so many negative connotations attached to it, and so for me to compound that by wanting the act to be homosexual as well as sordid –"

"I'll stop you there," James interjected. "That's exactly my point: I don't think rimming is in any way 'sordid'. Not too long ago, straightforward oral sex was seen as a perversion – it was actually illegal for husbands and wives to do it together in some US states. Since then, it has been largely accepted as a normal part of a sexual relationship. I think, given time, rimming will be similarly brought in from the dark ages. There shouldn't be any shame associated with any sexual act as long as it's not hurting anyone."

I nodded. "I suppose you're right... it just seems such a... I don't know... a really base thing to want to do to someone..."

James smiled. He had a nice smile; a little tired, no doubt from the long hours of his job, but warm and genuine.

"I'll tell you a story," he said. "I wasn't going to mention this because... well... it's kind of personal and it involves someone who used to work here, but if you'd be happy to hear me out, you might find it interesting."

"Of course," I assented, curious as to what he was going to tell me. I grabbed my other shoe and pushed my foot into it.

"It was a few years ago, just after I'd taken up the position here and moved down from Sheffield with my wife and our daughters. One of the doctors here – a young guy who I won't name – had been sponsored to grow his beard for some charity or other and had come to the point of shaving it off. He'd grown it for about a year, I think, and it was getting quite big and curly. I got the feeling that it was, quite literally, starting to come between him and his girlfriend.

"Someone had the idea that he could raise more money by shaving not only his beard but his whole body. He was a hairy guy – you could see his chest hair bristling over the top of his shirt and tie – and it seemed like it would be quite a fun thing for him to do. As it turned out, he got more sponsorship money for agreeing to get 'sheered', as he put it, than he did for growing his beard.

"On the day of the sheering, we decided we'd need some 'before' and 'after' photos of him to satisfy people that he'd gone through with it. He was going to shave himself in one of the examination rooms which has a shower and, for some reason which I can't remember, I was volunteered to take the photos."

James chuckled at the memory and I smiled uncertainly at him, trying to figure out where this was leading.

"We got a few 'before' photos with him stripped to his underwear. If I'd have been getting photo'd in my next-to-nothings, I'd have worn the baggiest pair of boxer shorts I could find. Not this guy! He was wearing the skimpiest, tightest pair of briefs you could imagine. Everything else was in the laundry bag, he said. 'Yeah, right,' I thought – it was pretty obvious that the guy clearly loved showing himself off."

"Who was going to see these photos?" I asked.

"Anyone who happened to look over at the noticeboard in reception," James said with a smirk. "He knew full well we were going to make a poster but I think he quite liked the idea of all of the old grannies who fussed over him when they came in for their haemorrhoid treatments seeing him stripped down to a pair of skivvies which left nothing to the imagination."

I suggested that maybe he liked showing off his hairy chest. (If I'd had a hairy chest, I would have been rather pleased to have had it photo'd and plastered all over a noticeboard – though not if I'd had to strip down to my underwear, of course.)

"There was certainly plenty of hair to show off," chuckled James. "Not just on his chest, but his arms and legs were as furry as a gorilla's!"

I smiled. This guy sounded very interesting; it was a pity he'd moved on to a different surgery.

"Once I'd taken a few 'before' shots, he got to work shaving his chest. I went off to do something, maybe some paperwork or something, while he finished off shaving. When I returned, most of his body, arms and legs were looking smooth. He was covered in smears of shaving foam mixed with stubble from where he hadn't yet showered, but even so, the transformation was breath-taking – he looked more naked, perhaps... but also more vulnerable, if that makes sense.

"He turned to me and grinned and I burst out laughing. The problem was that he hadn't shaved his crotch and the hair was bristling out from his briefs, looking utterly ridiculous now that the skin around them had been shaved.

"'I'm not shaving down there!' he said. 'I've got to draw the line somewhere!'

"'But it looks really silly,' I laughed. 'Like you need an emergency bikini wax!'

"He tried to tuck his bush into his underpants but it kept poking out, like it was re-sprouting, which made me laugh even more.

"'Look,' I told him, 'you said you were going to shave off all of your hair – surely that means all of it. Every last whisker.'

"Eventually, after some persuasion, he agreed, and I went off again, while he took off his pants and started shaving his pubes. When I returned after a short while, his front was completely hairless. It was strange to see him like that – with his genitals completely hairless."

"I suppose it's odd to see a grown man looking as hairless as a little kid," I suggested.

James smiled but shook his head. "That would probably be true for you, but for me it just looked as if he was prepped for surgery. Like he was waiting for me to give him a vasectomy or something."

"That would make an interesting fundraising idea!"

James chuckled.

"He turned around and asked me to finish off his back for him. He'd managed to shave around his shoulders, but most of his back was still covered in hair. Like I said, he was a very hairy bloke. His backside, and particularly between his cheeks, was especially... shall we say... hirsute."

I finally started to realise where this was headed and leaned forwards a little, eager for him to continue.

"I carefully shaved his back for him, sloshing the razor around in a beaker of water to get rid of the thick clumps of hair I was removing. I asked him if he wanted to me to do his backside, figuring he might want to sort out that part for himself, and he said it would be easier if I did it. So I knelt down behind him and he bent forwards, supporting himself against the back of a chair."

James stopped, as if unsure as to how to continue, and threw me another of his smiles.

I smiled back expectantly. After a moment or so, I ventured, "And then?"

"Well..." he began carefully. "Let's just say I can empathise with your attraction for that area. There was something about kneeling behind another guy... being so close to his bum... that I found quite – I don't know how best to describe it – perhaps 'intriguing' might cover it..."

"Okay," I said nodding, disappointed that he seemed to have bottled-out at the best part. "Let's just take it back a few steps. You knelt down behind him and you did what, exactly?"

James smiled more broadly and nodded, throwing me look which seemed to acknowledge that he'd short-changed me.

"I shaved his buttocks quite quickly, all the time becoming aware that his backside had a certain smell to it which was... well... not unappealing... very much along the lines of what you described."

"Didn't the smell of the shaving foam overwhelm everything else?" I asked. The stuff I used always smelt cloyingly of artificial lemon.

He shook his head. "It was unperfumed NHS stuff – the type we use in minor surgery."

"So what was his smell like?" I asked, wondering if for the first time I had found someone in person who had shared, to some extent, my experience. "Did you like it?"

"Yes, I did," he agreed. "It wasn't... you know... as you might expect..."

I nodded. "I know exactly what you mean."

"It was a bit sweaty, a bit skunky," he went on, "But something about it caught my attention... it was, maybe on some deeply buried level of consciousness, quite fascinating..."

"Surely you'd had a face around guys' backsides before? When you were taking samples, inserting suppositories, that kind of stuff..."

"It's standard practice to wear surgical mask if you need to get up close," he said. "Nothing gets through those things."

I nodded. "Ah. So what was it about it that you liked?"

He chuckled. "I think, Rob, you could probably describe its appeal better than me. Suffice to say that, in spite of its place of origin, the scent was undeniably sexual and had quite a potent effect on me. Perhaps there was a pheromonal component, I don't know."

"So you developed an erection?" I asked, rather without thinking.

"I think that's a little personal," he retorted, throwing me a frosty look of reproof.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "I was just trying to parallel your experience with my own. The first time I did it, it had a very dramatic effect on me – both mentally and physically. Having said that," I said, trying to lighten the mood with a smile, "as you saw, it doesn't take very much to trigger a response from me."

His expression softened slightly and he nodded. "Okay... fair point. Yes, I became aroused. And, as you say, very dramatically so."

"So what happened next?" I asked, resolving to keep my line of questioning more open-ended.

"Having shaved his buttocks, I asked him to bend further forwards so I could get the razor between them. That was when I really became aware of how... intoxicating his scent back there really was.

"I had to ease his cheeks apart so that I could shave his cleft, rinsing the razor off with water as I did so, and all the time I was growing more and more aroused by the intensifying smell of him... that exciting and slightly crass, but incredibly masculine, odour. Inside the confines of my clothing, things were getting somewhat painful."

I wondered if that meant he was, like me, rather a grower.

"Could he see, do you think, how aroused you were?"

He shook his head. "I was kneeling down, remember, so my... er... excitement was hidden among the folds. I was more concerned that the wet patch it was making on my underwear was seeping through to my trousers, to be honest."

He chuckled and I smiled back at him, surprised that, while he'd been reticent about telling me he had an erection, he had no qualms about letting me know how much it oozed. Perhaps he thought all men dribbled precum so profusely when they were aroused.

"So what did you do next?" I asked.

"Like you, I confess that I was drawn to press my face close to him and I guess I must have moved in too close. He called back to me, in a joking way, 'Get your face out of there, man!' But there was an unmistakeable edge to his voice – as if I was invading a very personal part of his body space... which, obviously I was."

"If he hadn't been so... er... disobliging, do you think you'd have gone further?"

"Maybe... but I don't think so," he replied. "I was certainly fantasizing about what I might like to do, and my thoughts were straying into areas which I knew they shouldn't."

Then he added with a mischievous smirk: "Areas not really befitting a happily married man..."

I smiled back, keen to know exactly where those naughty thoughts of his had strayed to. Had he fantasised about actually rimming the other man; of leaning forwards and exploring with his tongue the part that smelled so tempting? 'Just putting a bit of spit back there, mate! Helping to lubricate the razor!'

As if that possibility wasn't fascinating enough, was it conceivable that his thoughts could have been driven by the more pressing needs of his "painful" erection? Was he contemplating, while he was crouching there behind his naked friend, getting to his feet and unzipping himself; pushing himself forwards so he could ease his wet, sticky cock into the part which was so arousing him? Would young Dr Courtney, who seemed outwardly so innocuous, really have mentally plumped straight for the full-on butt-fuck, sidestepping the more circuitous route along which my fantasies had sauntered?

Perhaps his heterosexual experiences had, unlike mine, been peppered with regular doses of anal intercourse. If he enjoyed that particular variant of straight sex, it was quite possible that, on finding himself excited with his face poised over the male version of the same hole, his first impulse would be to use his cock to probe that area rather than his tongue.

I smiled to think of the good doctor imagining doing the dirty with his younger colleague. Bending the other man over, grabbing him by the hips and pleasuring himself in his freshly-shaven arse. I wondered if he'd played out the scenario again that night with his wife, or if he'd surreptitiously masturbated in the bathroom with it at the forefront of his mental imagery.

Whether he might even have used his fingers on his own bum to experience a second time a whiff of the smell that had so aroused him.

Whether the smell of mine, subtle but unmistakable in the air just moments earlier, had caused his cock to grow and dribble a little more.

Before I could think of a way I could phrase a question to discreetly delve into such matters, James sought to draw the discussion back to my own situation: "My reason for telling you this is to give a first-hand example of the point I made earlier. Namely, that the anus is a surprisingly sexual area and being in close proximity to such an intimate area of another person can elicit unexpected reactions."

"So what happened next between you two guys?" I asked, hoping to draw him back to the action, such as it was.

James smiled, no doubt seeing straight through my question. "What's left to say? I finished off shaving him and he got in the shower to wash off all the gunge and the stubble. Then he pulled his underwear back on and I took the 'after' shots with him looking smooth and sleek. By then, the feeling I'd had – the sudden urge to get physical with him – had passed and I couldn't, to be honest, understand what had come over me. He was just another guy – albeit a scantily-dressed one – and of no sexual interest to me at all."

"Have you thought of it since? About how you felt when you were so close to him?"

An image of him locked away in his bathroom feverishly enjoying the memory with that copiously oozing cock of his flashed into my mind.

"Not really," he said, disappointingly. "Not until you told me about what had happened to you. Perhaps what I experienced was completely different from what you did, but feel free draw any similarities which might prove useful when you're trying to figure it out."

"I don't think it was so different – in fact, what you've described makes me feel like maybe I'm not so weird after all. Thank you for telling me."

I did appreciate his honesty and trust. He was married man with two kids and I was sure he wouldn't want it to become common knowledge that he got off, like I did, by having his face pressed up against other men's arses.

He handed me the leaflet which he said was more to inform me about the physical aspects of rimming rather than to answer my more pressing questions about the reasons I was having such feelings, and we stood up together as I made to leave.

"Does your son know about what you're going through?" he asked. James knew Jake quite well and was aware of some of the struggles I'd had trying to single-handedly guide my son – often by the scruff of his neck – through his turbulent teens.

"No," I replied, surprised at the question. "I wouldn't him want to know that I'm... well..."

"...human?" he suggested.

I thought for a moment and nodded. "I suppose..."

For some reason, we both felt compelled to shake hands as he saw me out of the room. Perhaps it was a way of acknowledging the peculiar connection we'd identified with one another, or perhaps we were silently agreeing that what we had both said in the room would remain strictly between the two of us.

As I left the building, I wondered if maybe James was right that my interest in rimming other men had emerged as some kind of manifestation of a problem I'd experienced in my youth, whether it was a throwback to the adversarial relationship I'd had with my brother or something else. Perhaps if I rooted through my past enough, I might find the reason for what I was going through and, if I did, it might make these feelings which were welling up in me, subside and go away.

Walking across the car park, I asked myself if I really wanted to be free of these thoughts and to return to seeing other men in a completely asexual light. How pleasant would it be to have this new aspect to my sexuality simply fade away like the fragments of an interesting dream on waking? Would it be a relief, or would I miss them? I wasn't sure that wanted to find out.

I felt like I'd been re-energised by what had happened to me with Guy and during the months since. My life had acquired new meaning: every day seemed to reveal some novel twist on things I had previously taken for granted; I was endlessly astonished at how what had only recently appeared drearily familiar could be transformed into something so exciting and stimulating.

No – I didn't want these feelings just to die away. I wanted to embrace them and enjoy them; I wanted them to continue to surprise and revitalise me.

Back in my car, before I started the engine, I looked at the leaflet which James had given me. On the front of it was a picture of an aggressive-looking short-haired youth taken from behind. He was bending forwards slightly with his scruffy jeans yanked down to reveal a rather delicious-looking pair of pale buttocks. The caption underneath read: "If you rim him, you rim every other guy who's rimmed him." Now there was an enticing thought! Talk about all your Christmases coming at once.

Inside, the leaflet was disappointingly wordy and devoid of any more pictures of other young men showing off their backsides. The text described some of the diseases which could be picked up by two men – and there seemed to be an implicit assumption that they would be gay – during rimming. I was surprised that it said HIV was not a significant risk, but it listed a number of scary-sounding conditions which could be transmitted by the arse-to-mouth route. It warned against the dangers of rimming a guy straight after brushing or flossing one's teeth because this could leave small scratches on the inside of the lips and cheeks which microbes could exploit. It also recommended using a sheet of latex called a dental dam when rimming a guy which struck me as defeating the whole point of the activity.

I decided that I'd do what I could to minimise the risks, but ultimately I'd have to take the rough with the smooth. Rough bums and smooth bums... so many choices...

On the back of the leaflet there was a large white rectangle into which someone had, probably a long while ago, stamped the details of a weekly meeting which took place up near Leicester. The group went under the rather vague banner of "Men's Sexual Health Issues" and it ran on Monday evenings at an adult learning centre, led by a "fully trained male counsellor". Anonymity was most categorically assured. I wondered if it still took place and whether, perhaps, some of the answers I was seeking might be found there.

Stashing the leaflet into my jacket pocket and starting up the car, I decided that, if I could remember what I had to do to withhold my phone number before calling someone, I would give the centre a ring. Leicester was a long way away and it was unlikely I'd know anyone at the meeting. And even if I did, I could quickly leave, claiming I'd wandered in by mistake and was really looking for the pottery class or something.

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Next story: Online Briefing

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