All Used Up
an excerpt

It’s been far too long, he reasons, his flaccid member in hand, stern frown on face, far too long since there was someone else to do this for him. And now it’s come to this, this shameful, self-gratifying, masturbatory moment in the bathroom stall of The Strand behind eighteen miles of brilliant, recycled literature and a hard-on the size of the Empire State Building.

Fuck, her tits were amazing.

There had been a concerned tap on the bathroom door a good thirty seconds ago, but he can’t seem to pull himself away from that up-down-up-down cadence. It’s hypnotic, prosaically hypnotic, this rhythm.

“Man, are you okay in there?”

He is more than okay; he is blissful. He clutches onto himself, eyes squeezing shut. For a moment, he loses his breath and falls into a poster-board cutout of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It is transcendent, this tingle in his toes, and he trips over himself, falling against the stall. He shudders, moans, melts, yet still he keeps up the rhythm. There is too much at stake to stop now.

“I’m getting the manager, don’t worry!”

He shifts weight to the other shoulder and places his head on the stall door. He is close, dangerously, tantalizingly close to achieving this shameful bliss. His stomach tenses, his rhythm quickens, and the shouts from outside fade away into a buzz of incoherency.

“Oh, God,” he whispers instinctively, “Shit.”

And he peaks. Releases. He collapses into a breathless, post-masturbatory heap. The door flies open revealing a concerned mob that waits outside.

“Is he okay?”

He doesn’t see faces; he’s still high off mimicked coitus. There is a trickle of sweat rolling down his forehead, but all he can sense is that up-down cadence.

“He’s a little flushed. Are you overheated?”

“Fine,” he mutters, falling back onto the toilet and catching his breath. His zipper is still open. “I’m fine.”

The crowd steps closer, inquisitive. A brave older woman steps forward to place a hand on his forehead but pauses just a few feet in front of him.

“What is that?” she asks, her eyes growing larger.

His head bobs loosely on his heck, still lost in the transcendence of physical release, of satisfaction.

“Come look. What is that?”

More crowding, gasps, hands in his face. He blinks, looking at the twisting faces. “What?” he finally asks.

“Dude,” someone carries the crowd backwards. “Dude that’s gross.”

“Hm?” He finds the energy to push himself up from the toilet into a more erect position.

“It’s jizz, man, on your shirt. Fucking gross.”

He fully regains composure and jumps up. “No! No, No, that’s not, that’s just, ah…”

“You were…” the older woman retracts her hand with disgust.

“He was jerking off!” someone yells again as the crowed unravels into a series of groans and chastising phrases.

“Look—” he attempts in his defense, but finds himself easily distracted by the stain on the tail of his shirt. Staring back at him is the residue of his bathroom stall sin, a fading translucent, sticky puddle of unborne semen. Yet another reminder he needs a more animate, responsive outlet than the underside of his right hand. Another reminder that perhaps cutting her loose was the worst decision he has made in twenty-three years.

He looks to the crowd again, shirt stretched out between his hands as he examines the stain, their faces, the stain again. He shrugs a sheepish apology. “You have to understand, I haven’t been laid in a fucking long time.”