First and Goal

Chapter 2

One day, out of the blue, Darrin got an email notification. Someone had seen his profile on Bear Cave, a gay hookup site for bears looking for twinks and vice-versa. Whoever it was had left a message for him.

Since Darrin’s dance career had taken off he had more than enough of a social life to keep him happy and satisfied. So he’d taken down the profiles he’d posted. Evidently he’d forgotten this one.

He’d always hated meeting men that way. The encounters often turned out to be complete disasters: married men who had lied about their status, men who had grossly misrepresented their age and physical attributes, and those who were downright scary. Very few worked out. Darrin was glad to be done with that scene.

At first he ignored the notice, but didn’t delete it from his inbox. Every once in a while he’d glance at it when he was checking his emails. He found himself getting curious. One day he decided, just for the hell of it, to check it out. What can it hurt? he asked himself. It’d been so long since he’d visited the site that he didn’t remember his username or password. He’d be able to get a new password emailed to him if he could recall his username.

His username turned out to be his email address. That was simple enough. The password…not so much. He tried some of the passwords he’d probably have used. They usually had something to do with dance, like: tapdanceman or discofreak. He tried salsaaddict, as well. Deciding he would never hit on the right one, he requested help with his password and reset it to foxtrot2.

Darrin signed in and went to his profile. A wave of bad memories washed over him. He looked at the pictures he’d posted of himself and the narrative he’d written. Pathetic and needy, he thought. His screen name made him shudder—bearcocksucker. How could he ever have pimped himself out this way? He almost decided to give up on the idea of seeing who had written to him, but the flashing of the message icon caught his eye. Before he stopped to think, he clicked on it.

The message was from somebody whose screen name was SexStarvedBear88. Well, that was a turn off right there. However, somewhat intrigued, Darrin read what SexStarvedBear88 had to say.

Saw your profile. Grrrr! Nice! Think we might have a good time together. If interested drop me a note. Charlie.

Still wondering why he was going on with this, Darrin clicked on the link to SexStarvedBear88’s profile. He regretted it immediately. That was mainly because Darrin’s d**k didn’t regret it at all. It reacted at once, moving quickly past a chubby to full hard on. Three pictures graced the page. The man was muscled, and hairy. His c**k was cut, thick, and beautiful. His ass was full, round, and you could just tell it was firm and smooth to the touch—the kind of man Darrin had always dreamed of bedding. But the guy hadn’t posted a face pic. All his photos were cut off above the neck.

Darrin’s profiles had always had the disclaimer: No face pic, no deal. Don’t bother to contact me.

Guess this Charlie guy can’t read, he mused.

On the strength of the suggestions Darrin’s hard c**k was giving him, he ignored his no pic, no deal rule, and proceeded to look at the man’s stats.

Age: 31. Height: 6’6”. Weight: 240#. Body type: Muscled/Hairy. c**k: cut, 7.5 inches. Status: Single. Looking for: NSA fun. The latter was underlined and in bold italics. He hadn’t written a narrative.

Sounds too good to be true, Darrin thought. He’ll probably be short, out of shape, and married. Probably swiped these pictures off the net. Besides, it doesn’t make any difference. I’m not interested.

Having been burned several times responding to guys like this, Darrin had no intention of following through. Once his dance career had taken off by securing jobs in a couple of Broadway shows and touring companies as an ensemble dancer, he’d had many opportunities for relationships with guys. Most of them were casual, some more serious. He’d matured past getting what he needed from sites like this. He logged out.

However, for some reason, over the next few days, he kept revisiting the site. He didn’t seem to be able to keep himself from looking at SexStarvedBear88’s three hot pictures. He even downloaded them to his desktop. He read and reread the man’s profile. Finally, as if being guided by an unseen force, his finger moved to the ‘reply to message’ button and poked it.

Shaking his head, and wondering why he was going on with this, Darrin wrote: Hi Charlie. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Grrrr yourself. Yeah, I’m interested. Got a face pic? Kind of a requirement of mine. Darrin.

He ended the note with his email address and clicked ‘send.’ He sat for a minute still studying Charlie’s pictures and wondering what he was getting himself into.

For the next few days, Darrin found he was eager to check his emails to see if Charlie had responded and sent him a picture. He figured he could just ignore any further communication with the guy if Charlie turned out to be a troll. Darrin would just ghost him. Darrin would disappear without a word, as was the protocol for sites like this. After a week nothing had appeared in his inbox. He shrugged it off and put Charlie out of his mind.

Then one night, while riding home from rehearsal on the subway, Darrin checked his emails on his smartphone. There was a message notice from Bear Cave. He would wait until he got home to read it. For the rest of the trip an unbidden feeling of excitement stole over him.

When Darrin got to his apartment, he hurriedly hung up his coat, headed straight for his computer, and logged on to Bear Cave. He clicked the message icon. The message was indeed from Charlie. Darrin let out a long, slow breath.

Hey Darrin—Thanks for writing. Sorry it took so long to get back to you but I been out of town. Do you think you’d like to meet? I have one question though. Are you a sports fan? Charlie.

Darrin noticed this Charlie guy had ignored his question of the face pic. That was not a good sign. And he hadn’t used the email address Darrin had given him. There were a couple of reasons why guys didn’t want their pic on the net or to use their personal email. One was they were butt ugly and didn’t want to take a chance on rejection. That didn’t make much difference to Darrin. He’d sometimes had great s*x with guys whose picture, if hung on a screen door, would keep the flies out. However, in those cases it usually turned out that they had bodies that rivaled the Greek gods, as was the case with Charlie. He’d always believed in the motto: When you’re stoking the fire, you don’t check the clock on the mantel.

The second reason was more important—and telling. Guys that didn’t want their face out there and didn’t want their email address known, were usually not out. Maybe they were married, or famous, or afraid of losing their jobs. At any rate Darrin thought this was silly. Nearly everyone used a code name on these sites. You wouldn’t have your profile pop up if someone Googled your screen name. The only people that might find and recognize you were on the site for the same reasons you were: to hook up with someone of like mind. No harm, no foul.

And what was the sports fan thing all about? Why would it make a difference if he was or not? Darrin considered lying and saying he was a big fan, but why do that. He could easily be found out. About ten seconds of conversation would probably do it. He wasn’t even sure of the names of the city’s pro teams. He supposed there were some. This was NYC after all. But that, too, was a moot point. No pic, no deal. So that was that. However, in spite of all his reservations, Darrin found himself answering Charlie, saying: Sure. When would you like to meet? How about coffee? Then we can decide whether it’s pass or play. Darrin. Oh yeah, I’m not into sports.

He didn’t mention a picture this time.