Page 17 of Built To Perform

“Are you sure?”

Adam shot me a “you can’t be fucking serious right now” glare.

“Wanna put them on and see if I bone up?”

His jeans were already stretched around his clear erection. Not that he had any apparent qualms about us both seeing that. Sometimes it was funny to think about the painfully reserved, self-conscious guy I’d moved in with at the start of term, and how - upon realizing I wasn’t some homophobic, single-brain-cell jock - he’d come out both as gay and sufficiently blunt to make me regularly blush.

“It wouldn’t be a fair test,” I teased.

Adam flipped me off. “Don’t ask for advice if you can’t handle the answer.”

I gave his crotch a very pointed look.

“I’ve already handled ‘the answer’ plenty, haven’t I?”

He laughed. “So just how far are you planning to go, then?”

It took a moment to realize he was talking about the club - about dancing, and then the things I’d watched Brayden doing after that - rather than with him. Funny, how your brain can know you’re doing something, know you’re committed, and yet skate over some of the most important details like they’re non-stick coated. Details like, well, are you gonna get off in front of a whole bunch of strangers?

I was no closer to having an answer now than I had been with Carlos.

Shrugged, instead, as I turned to push the outfit Adam had selected for me into a bag. That required pulling out that day’s workout gear; a thought occurred, as I dumped the sweaty bundle into the laundry basket.

“Wait, you jerked off on my blue singlet?”

Another chuckle. “In your blue singlet, I jerked off in it. As in, wrapped around my dick.”

“You’re so messy,” I said, shaking my head.

“Says the wannabe-stripper,” my roommate fired back, and the grin was clear in his voice.

Chapter Six

I wasn’t Brayden, that was my problem.

Didn’t have the senior’s physique - his muscles, his swagger - or his confidence and cocky grin. The assuredness in his own body which seemed so alien to me. Brayden didn’t look at his teammates and see his own failure to live up to them, to match them. He didn’t sneak sly glances at Jefferson and berate himself for not being wide enough, muscular enough to compete in the same class.

Which wasn’t to say he was complacent or lazy. Only suffused with a sort of resolute certainty - about his place in the world - which I could only envy.

Brayden seemed made for the stage lights and the thumping bass of the blaring music. Whereas I couldn’t help but figure the men waiting for a performance would only be disappointed at my shell-shocked inexperience.

“You’re either getting out there or I’m sending the next guy on.”

I looked at Harvey’s face, not sure what expression of mine he’d see. Fear, quite probably. Regret, very likely.

And understanding. No mistaking what the club manager really meant, the repercussions of my backing out. Another dancer would replace me now, but replace Brayden permanently too.

I grit my teeth, fighting the urge to close my eyes against the flickering lights.

“I’m going on,” I told him.

“Well now would be a damn good time,” he fired back, impatiently.

Just like walking out to the mat, I told myself, as I felt the full glare of the spotlights bathe me. You have to feel confident, have to project confidence. Nobody walks into a competition already signaling that they’ve come in second place. And how much of that confidence is real, and how much is make-believe, that’s not the damn point.

You’re not psyching your opponent out. You’re doing it for yourself.

I looked up, at the crowd I could only just make out. Looming darkness beyond the stage lighting, yes, but exaggerated by the narrow slits of the holes cut in the mask. Wondering if the men out there were happy, or disappointed, or indifferent about the guy they’d see next; if their preferences ran to bigger bodies, or smaller, or skinnier, or some niche, special line of fantasy I didn’t have a hope of satisfying.