i finished my run, stripped down, and sat in my run-down lounge in the back yard. If I angled it just right, Braxton's tree blocked me from the east, the tall Cyprus gave me privacy from the west, and, if Kara noticed me from the high bathroom window of her guest suite, and stood on her step stool, she could see my flaccid cock come to life in the mid-morning sun.
She was at work though, so I really had all the privacy I needed. So, I started.
Nothing happens fast after a long run. 5 miles in the morning heat didn't go quickly, but I finished them all at a decent jogging pace and beat my target time by 93 seconds, which is fine for today. The only point of today's run was calorie count. Just keep going. Pound the pavement, try not to trip, and burn, baby, burn. Day One, again, of trying to lose just a few before Thanksgiving, trying to avoid the horrible pictures where I have to turn sideways in a group shout and prove to the world that I'm on longer the athlete I once claimed to be, but just another round-bellied middle-aged dad with too many M&Ms and too few laps in the pool to prove it.
Once more into the breach, counting calories, skipping desert, avoiding the things that make life worth living.
And for what? It won't get me more sex from the wife or anyone else. I may get a passing compliment from my even fatter friends who claim to be supportive but secretly harbor the jealousy that only a tweaked knee or bad heart can cultivate. They are done, finished, they let the chassis go bad and now it's too late. They'll never run a 5K, or climb Francis Peak with their boys, or buy a house with a staircase again.
But that's not me, it can't be, I have to fight the battle now. Eventually I'll lose, we all do, we all end up in the ground, rich and poor, bond or free, good looking or ugly as mud. We all end up 6 feet under if we are lucky. Some end up at the bottom of the lake for betraying the man with the Artificial Hair who lived on the banks of the Salton Sea.
but for now, as the sun crests the orange tree to the east and the crows decided that my almost turgid frame isn't dead, but only practicing for the long sleep, they fly away to look for more suitable carrion, some that won't fight back when they sink their beaks into mottled flesh. For now, I'll lay back and let the sun bake away the running sweat to replace it with the flop sweat of an old man who jerks off in his backyard to feel daring.
Kara used to watch, used to smile down at me, but even that gets old after a while and she went back to her computer, her gay porn, and her angry husband who wishes he was the one with a cock in his mouth while she watched and felt the small comfort of a sad orgasm from lonely fingers.
An hour later, after my thoughts of her faded and the sticky residue matted the hair on my stomach to my pale skin, I hear the truck pull up.
Fuck, I say. It's Monday.
I wipe the sun out of my eyes and grab my chair and pull it across the lawn, desperate to get back inside before my gardening crew makes it through the side gate and I give a prayer of thanks that the latch is loud, cranky, and slow to open.
The patio door slides closed behind me, and I breathe a sigh of relief and head to the shower.
I stop in the hallway and stare across the street. Candice is walking past with her little Pekinese pups, cute as a button and just able to join her on her morning strolls. She's in her lycra shorts, a bra top, and headphones as always. She stops, bends over, and pets Artimis, the youngest pup, and I figure that my shower might be better than I feared.
