free style

nelspruit calls, and so does the virgin active swimming pool

The receptionist smiled at him as he buzzed in, his obnoxiously large gym bag swinging precariously from his undefined shoulder. He’d been convinced, last year, that the receptionist had a bit of a crush on him, had even told Eliza he thought so, and she’d giggled and been gently encouraging in the non-confrontational way she always was. Until she told him a few days later he’d actually asked her for her number and that he seemed, according to her, pretty straight, and that shame, maybe he had had a crush on the receptionist. She’d mentioned it offhand, the gentle shine of perspiration on her forehead glistening under the fluorescent lights of the upper floor of the gym as they squatted together, while his shirt dripped wet from sweat. He was always doing that, confusing his own feelings for the feelings of others, projecting things he couldn’t yet name onto the blank canvas of friends, assistants, other students at the university. In the two years he’d started coming to the gym with Eliza she’d figured him out, painstakingly reminding him that the image he’d constructed of the world was not often accurate. Or at least not as often as he liked to believe.

He resisted the urge to smile back at the receptionist this morning, dropping his voice an octave to murmur a ‘howzit’ before pushing through the turnstile. He loved the smell of the place. It was muggy always, the sweat from the bodies rising to meet the stale air and the smell of the pool’s chlorine scratching an itch in the throat. He liked to take long in the shower after swimming, smelling the chlorine that clung to his body, sad to wash it away. It made his skin prickle, his face drying out the longer he waited to shower, but it was addictive. He knew Daniel hated it, and sometimes he went to bed without showering just to piss him off.

He rounded the seating area and pushed open the gate to get to the pool, the rain splashing against the giant window that framed the six lanes in front of him. He kicked his slides off and sat down on the bench to respond to a text from Eliza - I think you should go with the red, it’s hotter - and pulled his shirt off. It was tight coming over his upper back and he smiled when he felt it get caught. He’d been working hard, in the pool and also with Eliza, and it was maybe starting to show. He’d had some more free time with the Master’s this year and he’d used it to begin to sculpt the kind of body he knew from Instagram was important. Instagram and the other app, which he checked only weekly now that things with Daniel were serious. Or seemed serious. There’d been a shift, he felt, in the way men presented themselves. He couldn’t decide if it was the algorithm pushing him in that direction or if, genuinely, the scope of desire was narrowing, but it seemed as he scrolled that gay men had become harder and leaner, shaving off fat and building, always building. When he’d been in undergrad he hadn’t noticed bodies in the way he did now and when he had, he’d noticed a lot of different bodies. Now, after COVID maybe, or ageing out, or because his hair was almost all gone, he realised he’d become a stereotype. He saw only the biceps and the bulging calf muscles of men that committed themselves to this religion. It was repulsive, and undid all of the work he’d meticulously reconstructed in Gender Studies and Sociology in undergrad. And yet, these men were hotter. He couldn’t stop himself.

He stretched, and felt the tension in his back. For these men, it was important to have a standout, a prize part, the area of your body you honed in on. The standard abs, biceps and pectorals were no longer enough, and misidentified you as one of the straight gym rats. If queer was inherently subversive, then the gay jocks with whom he’d become obsessed set themselves apart by building a defining feature. On the other app, this was the feature they’d photograph from all angles, the feature they’d make sure to highlight in the night clubs, and the feature they’d wait to show off when they were eventually undressed in a room with another man. Or two. These features were a small rebellion against the standardising body structure of the age and indeed, though the men around him looked exactly the same, it took a practiced eye to identify The Feature. He loved doing it, and loved using it as a weapon, commenting on The Feature of another man at just the right moment, watching as his lips turned up in pride, a smirk which recognised that the both of them understood the code and had engaged in it satisfactorily. And if he was having a really good time, and had maybe had one too many glasses of wine, he’d misidentify The Feature on purpose and watch as his target absorbed this information - I mean, no, not really? Do you think so? Wow, yeah, I guess I usually focus on thighs but I have been training my shoulders pretty hard lately, wow, do you really think so? - It felt good to be able to dole this out, to redirect, to acknowledge hard work where it had been done, to flip the table and come out, always, on top. He was good at it, and he enjoyed when he was able to make other people feel good too.

His Feature was still a work in progress, but early on when they’d just started seeing each other, Daniel had touched the small of his back and squeezed, unintentionally. Something came across his face then, lust maybe, or surprise, and the envy that was inherent in all of these men when they were confronted with the body of another man. Daniel had made a soft sound in the back of his throat and squeezed a little bit harder, and then he dropped his hand. He’d watched this happen, storing it away for later and now, more often than not, when Eliza asked him what they were training that day, he said it was back day. It wasn’t just for Daniel either. In high school, he’d been one of the kids that insisted on bringing all of his books to school everyday, never sure when he might need them. Even still, when he packed to go on holiday, his suitcase was always overweight, filled up with the tiny anxiety that he might be unprepared. He’d walked with his back hunched over, trying to balance the weight of his books and his neck stuck out, willing himself forward so that he resembled always a scrawny tortoise. When he’d first begun to realise that his back was getting bigger in the gym, when Daniel had first remarked on it, he’d felt cosmically, that this was some realignment, a simultaneous dismantling and reconstruction into the man he knew he could be. He didn’t carry his books around anymore, but if he did, they would have looked in place on his broad back. He was proud of it, and when they went to the gay parties where they wore harnesses and mesh vests, he took note of the eyes of his competitors and he relished in them. After a while they even stopped noticing his bald head and he knew he would train harder.

He slid slowly down into the pool, the cold water sizzling against the hairs on his skin. A thick exhalation of air as he sunk down, up to his chest. He dunked down, covering his head and slowly coming up for air, sliding his cap on as he did so. He rinsed his goggles out, crouched up against the side of the pool and kicked off, arms stretched out and toes curled outwards, soaring through the cold water. He came up and began kicking his legs vigorously behind him, his arms rising up to meet the water and propelling him forward in a slow freestyle. The first few laps were always crucial, and he always knew how many he’d be able to do from the first ten. He was slow, methodical, feeling the weight of the water against his hands, pulling it in towards him and then out past his waist, his other arm reaching through to repeat the motion. He always tried to swim his first lap without breathing - he’d come close last year when he still swam with Sophia, but this morning he took it easy. He got to the shallow end, breathing slowly and deeply and stood up, whipping his goggles off to fill them up with water and rinse out the misted lenses. He sank back down and kicked off the side, slowly moving back towards the beginning. Even more than running on the treadmill, more than spinning, more than the endless squats Eliza pushed him through, this is what he needed. The slow, and then faster back and forth, the push out and inevitable return, the rhythmic breathing, the wiping of the goggles. This ritual was building him, building his back, building his heart and his lungs slowly, slowly, into the man he knew he would be. The swimming would fill him up.

Back and forth, a few more lengths, but by the time he’d covered eight laps of the pool he knew it was going to be a difficult day. He was here early, and they hadn’t behaved themselves last night, finishing two bottles of wine between them. Daniel had made lamb and roast potatoes so they could talk about the move, and the rich meat sat heavy in his stomach and his ass. Lately Daniel had been desperate, always offering to do things for him, or pay for him, or cooking these elaborate dinners, eager to prove something. The wine swirled around his head, collecting at his throat, making him gassy and restless in the pool, unable to get comfortable. The headache which always threatened to erupt the morning after was slowly gathering behind his left eyebrow which he knew was its first point of attack. The goggles, tight on his face and heavy around his head did not help. He was hungover, and the first thirty laps would be brutal. But he knew, from experience, that once he pushed past that threshold, the rest would be easy and he could sail to 100, twisting the day to become his again. Daniel had been sleeping when he’d left early that morning - he didn’t believe him whenever he tried to tell him that exercise would crucify the hangover. He knew he’d get home to find him miserable in bed, watching reruns of Glee. The thought made him smile. Then he remembered, and he plunged back down, kicking hard now to get to the other side.

The talk hadn’t gone well. The food was great - he loved using the airfryer, but Daniel had convinced him to give it a night off and the addition of dripping oil and glistening fat had been a welcome distraction from their conversation. But when he’d opened the second bottle of red, Daniel insisted.

“Are you gonna start talking about it, or?”

He’d looked up from his fourth lamb rib to see Daniel’s eyes trained on his. He lowered the rib to his plate and grinned up at Daniel, wiping the grease from his mouth.

“We’re doing this?”

“Stop teasing me. You know that’s what this dinner is for.”

“I know. And thank you, D. It was really special, and I know this isn’t really easy for you.”

“It’s not just about me! God, you always do this. You always wanna spin it around on someone else so you don’t have to deal with your own stuff. You’re the one who’s leaving, you’re the one whose whole life is gonna change. That has to be making you feel something, and you never want to talk about it and you never bring it up and you never tell me how you’re doing, you just shrug it off. And I get why, but it’s mean. You never wanna let me be there for you and I don’t even know if I’d be able to because I never know what you need or…” Daniel trailed off, looking off to his left, embarrassed. He put his fork down and leaned forward. “Sorry, I just feel like you have such a handle on this thing and I don’t know where to begin.”

A long pause, then, as he figured out how to move forward. The opening gambit had been played and Daniel had worn his heart in his mouth, which was typical of him. He swirled around some words, testing them out as Daniel watched him, waiting. Eventually, “Am I?”

Daniel was confused. “What?”

“Am I leaving?”

He leaned back then, waiting. It was a good response - last year, both high on shrooms, Daniel had curled into him and whispered that he liked when they communicated in subtext, when they fit messages discreetly into other words and flung them at each other, waiting to catch the real meaning. They’d created a secret kind of language, always having three conversations at once. He’d never been as attracted to Daniel as he was when he told him that, and after that moment, whenever they were at a party, they slid sly glances at each other when they knew they were playing a game no one else understood.

Daniel leaned back in his chair too, studying him. He hadn’t liked what he saw, because he’d rolled his eyes and said, “What?”

A miscalibration then. This was not the time for games, or secret languages, clearly. He straightened. “Do you think I should leave?”

Daniel sighed, annoyed. “Don’t pretend please.”

“Daniel, come on. What are you talking about?”

He’d been offered a residency, in Nelspruit of all places. They were looking for ‘emerging voices’, which had made Daniel laugh because what did that even mean and anyways his voice was anything but emerging, in fact he could stand to talk a bit less actually. He’d applied at Sophia’s suggestion and when he found out he got in, his elation had been shadowed only by his thoughts of Daniel.

“Don’t act like your mind isn’t already made up!”

He stared at Daniel then, unsure. Surprised. “Is that what you think?”

Daniel waited. A good move - he grinned, and Daniel smiled a little as well. “Okay, fine. It’s an incredible opportunity. They’re covering my meals, I get a stipend, everything. And it’s time to write, which is literally all I’ve been talking about.”

Daniel leaned forward, agreeing. “So why are you pretending your mind isn’t made up? Why are you asking me if you should leave? What kind of a fucked up position does that put me in dude?”

“Oh.” The word slipped out, surprising both of them. He hadn’t even been sure where it came from, hadn’t understood that over the course of the last year, things had changed so deeply, so bodily for him. He’d been so sure of things that here, now, to have the rug ripped out from him, made it all plain. The wine in his head bubbled, and his mouth opened, then closed again. Daniel watched this all carefully, waiting.

“Oh?”

“I’m sorry, I just…“ He went quiet, studying Daniel’s face, watching his eyes, looking for something he felt sure he’d seen there before. But now, under the warm light of the lamp hanging above the dining table, the soft sounds of SZA coming from the TV, he wasn’t sure. Had he imagined all of it?

“M?” Daniel looked concerned now, the remnants of their game abandoned, real feelings bubbling up to the surface.

“Sorry, I think…” He fiddled with his fork. Decided. He looked up, squarely at Daniel. “I’m gonna talk for a long time now I think and I’m not really sure what I’m going to say but please could you let me finish so that we can figure it out together.”

A giggle burst out of Daniel’s mouth, his eyebrows wide in disbelief. He leaned forward, both elbows on the table now. “Okay…”

He’d taken a deep breath then, another sip of wine, swirled it in his mouth before gargling it in a joke that he knew Daniel hated. On cue, Daniel’s face twisted into a grimace, which made them both laugh, breaking the tension. He breathed into the space they created, and started talking.

“Sometimes I feel like… Remember last year when we went to see Oedipus at Colonus and we got high afterwards and we sat in the parking lot and we spoke about how everything here is the same as it was in the play, the same as it was in ancient times? Like Oedipus wandering through the desert, blinded, cast out of society was just a metaphor for like all the shit that’s happening today? I mean obviously, but yeah, do you remember that?”

Daniel’s face dropped a little, weary. “Yeah, I do, but-”

“I really feel that way when I’m with you, D. Like I feel that way anyways, like I don’t always really belong here or… like now, like the full weight of history is bearing down on me sometimes, like I was there in Ancient Greece and I was there in Salem and I don’t know, maybe like at the Cuban Missile Crisis or something, like I’m not just me but I’m all these variations of me throughout time and stuff. Don’t look at me like that, come on, we spoke about this already, you know what I’m saying.”

Daniel relinquished. “Yeah.”

“Well I feel that way especially with you. I feel like when I’m with you and you’re watching me and I’m watching you watching me, that I really understand who I am, and not just who I am but every version of the I I am, like who I was throughout history, you know? Fuck, that’s corny.”

Daniel’d giggled then, blushing even.

“And it’s the wine obviously but it’s really hard for me to think that you might not know that whatever decision I make is obviously gonna be affected by you. Like I can’t believe you think I’d made up my mind already, without talking to you first. To me that’s what this dinner was, to figure it out together. And I know this is like a lot to say or whatever, and I’m not even really sure it made sense but it’s very hard for me to figure out what I am without you, and I just need you to understand that. And if there’s a reason for me to stay, if there’s something you want to say to me to make me stay, I really need to hear it. Because I need you to know that this would be a reason, that there’s enough here, just in this apartment to make me stay. I’m always gonna find my way back to the writing and I don’t know if that’s true about this.”

He’d reached lap twenty at that point, the events of the previous night pushing him harder, faster, his arms whipping around his head and back into the cold water. His head was pounding now and he could feel his heart in his throat, beating hard, pumping him forward. He sprinted and slammed into the back wall, the dull light from the window blinding him as he came up for air, breathing hard. He whipped his goggles off and dunked them in the water, washing the mist off again, panting as he turned around and looked at the distance he’d just swum. The pool was 25m but it started to add up if you plowed into the water, lap by lap. His whole body was tingling and the wine headache that had threatened to erupt had made its entrance. The lamb was also bubbling up, made words by the memory of his monologue and he’d begun to feel nauseous about three laps ago.

Daniel had responded by telling him that he should go. He wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, couldn’t remember the exact words he’d used, but he’d told him he was being silly, that it was ridiculous to think that the apartment, them, him, was more important than the writing, that he’d never be happy without the writing. And anyways, the historification of it all was a misdirect, just another story he was telling himself to avoid the real feelings of this lifetime right now and wasn’t it a little delusion-of-grandeur-y? He’d felt a little sick then, ambushed, blinded to this side of Daniel. A mean streak. Delicious to discover, but less delicious when it was aimed at him. And then, a gun pulled out and aimed at his head.

“I should tell you I have feelings for someone else.”

The whole world, all the worlds they’d inhabited together, threatening to come apart at the seams.

“I’m really sorry. Really, I am. It’s the worst I’ve ever felt about anything, ever. In my life. But I don’t look at you and see Oedipus or the Cuban Missile Crisis, or whatever. I see a very lonely man who throws himself into the gym and into his work to avoid dealing with anything that isn’t funny. I see an artist, M. It’s the best thing about you, but it’s also the only thing that matters. And I met this other guy and he’s not an artist and he doesn’t think he’s Oedipus, he’s just normal and uncomplicated and I’m sorry but I want that. And maybe that makes me a bad person, I’m sorry. I’ve been so guilty and I realised I’ve been doing all these things for you, I’ve been paying for things and buying you all these gifts and making you this dinner even, because I’ve felt so bad. And I thought you were leaving and it would solve everything but now you want me to say you should stay and I can’t. I can’t do that. And it’s fucked that you asked.”

He’d been looking at the wall the entire time and when he bought his eyes to look at Daniel’s, he’d seen something hard. Something true.

“God, I’m so sorry! I’m so so sorry, I can’t believe I… I’m so sorry M.”

Daniel’d jumped up then to clear the plates, anxious to do something, anxious to be busy, he was always anxious to be busy. He reached for his plate and knocked over the second bottle of wine which fell on to the wood floor, shattered. They both stood together then, in silence, watching the pool of red get larger and larger, blood on the floor.

“I’m sorry, M,” he whispered then.

The pool wasn’t working that morning, and when he came to the end of lap 40, he sunk down and sat, cross-legged on the bottom of the pool. He tore off his goggles, perpetually misty, and slid his orange cap off his head. His muscles ached, his head ached and he needed the toilet, the wine and the lamb mixing in a dangerous combination. When his lungs started to strain, he kicked off from the bottle of the pool and launched himself out of the pool, careful to show as much of his back to the people on the treadmill watching from above as he could. He dried off, slid his feet back into his sandals and put his shirt back on. They had pools in Nelspruit too.

---

chicken soup for the soul:

zoowhee mama! wat ‘n maand! i write to you deliciously from my dell family desktop computer in my family home in rustenburg as i am on ho-lee-dae baybee! thank you for your really sweet and wonderful interactions and comments on the fiction thing i am trying out this year - they boost my ego SO MUCH which is famously the powerhouse of the cell (and this newsletter). if you want to continue to receive this award-winning publication, please keep complimenting me! to borrow from bestie of the newsletter zwa, it makes my heart pump custard!

lots of things to think about always, but eternally grateful for everybody reading this and Having Thoughts about This, including who i now know are my students who found this lil newsletter! mortifying! electrifying! who knows what will happen next? time will tell vibes!

hot boi of the week:

anyways, as always i am capital C Crushing on a boy and this week that crush comes from that most scintillating of places - ‘survivor‘. it’s a thrilling new season with a BUNCH of baddies and even though carl thinks the hottie of the season was thomas and many have put forward their deep, lustful desires for david, the real real mccoy hottie of the season is INDUBITABLY:

capital D Dzaddy shauhin! jesus christ i am thankful to you for sending me this man. to my readers, i am so desperately sorry that all i can give you is this meme because all this man POSTS are memes, but look at those beautiful soulful eyes. LOOK AT THAT BEARD! i fear the love i have for this man is more than teeny tiny lil skinny body can manage! also if you are not watching this season of ‘survivor‘ you should really think about rectifying that.

sexy song of the week:

been listening to a LOT of sexy songs recently which have got me in the MOOD (bow-chicka-bow-wow vibes) but i have two absolute standouts. the first, in a surprise to NO ONE is:

haim’s latest single ‘relationships‘. the rule of my newsletter is that everytime haim puts out new music i have no choice but to award it sexy song status. and this song is a BANGER! sometimes the saddest things can be the prettiest (okayyy, i’m talking about me!) and sometimes you really need to make a song about the exquisite agony of relationships! thank you jewish sisters! song number two is:

james blake’s ‘you’re too precious‘. it can be such a magical thing to look death in the eye and listen to her breath in your ear! james blake is a certified Sad Boi who reaches inside of your ass and up to your heart to SQUEEZE it! always fun!

thank you friends, lovers, DA voters, as always for your support. realised with surprise this afternoon that this is something that i really love doing and is also really important to me and that i love escaping into tiny little worlds of my own making to induce pathos and catharsis. thank you for reading it and if you do have thoughts, negative or positive, they are always my favourite part of the day. go gently into that good night icons! we are on the brink of environmental collapse but at least we have haim!