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| Part 2 by Castgimp |
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| There's just maybe one more notable sighting (notable for its frustration quotient) that I want to tell you about before we move on to the meat of our story. This one maybe I shouldn't even tell, because it makes me get serious here for a minute to tell it. But I'm going to anyhow, because it goes to illustrate how cast sightings can crop up where you least expect them, and every one of them, no matter what the circumstances, deserves to be savored. A couple of years ago I was doing some volunteer work for an organization whose purpose was to help people with AIDS take care of their pets. I'm a big softie when it comes to animals, and the work was easy enough. Once a month we'd deliver pet food to people. Sometimes we'd take animals to the vet. There was this one assignment I had where I walked this one guy's dog a couple of mornings a week before work. He had a beautiful white Husky that used to pull at the leash the whole time we were out, but who really was a fabulous dog. The routine was I used to let myself in and this guy was usually on the couch and I would take the dog for 30 minutes or so and come back and chat for a while and then go to work. One day I got here and he wasn't on the couch when I stepped inside so I said "hello? Richard?" and from the top of the stairs this unfamiliar voice yelled down, "he's in the hospital..." Then he appeared at the top of the stairs. He wasn't anyone I had ever seen before...I didn't know if he was Richard's lover or a roommate or a friend or what, but the man had a cast on his leg. It was one of the most distinctive casts I have ever seen. It was fiber, and white, and it came up over his knee, but only part way up his thigh, and not all the way up to his hip the way a long leg cast usually does. The cast also had a deep bend at the knee, so there was no way he could walk on it...the bend was so deep there was no way his foot could even reach the ground. I was at the bottom of the stairs looking up at him standing at the top of the stairs and this is what I saw. A tall skinny guy, bare-chested, dark haired, naked but for a baggy pair of cotton canvas shorts of some sort-he had long legs with dark hair on them and long arms. And here's the thing-even with that bend in his cast he didn't have a pair of crutches. He was bracing himself with his arms-one hand on each wall on either side of the stairs. His cast was swinging free back and forth underneath him while he balanced himself at the top of the stairs. And then came the most remarkable part. He started coming down the stairs. Without crutches. Without putting his casted leg down. And he took the stairs two at a time. He simple reached out with his two long strong arms and braced himself against the wall and leveraged himself and his cast down the stairs two at a time. I was in awe. I knew that was hard to do, and he seemed to do it effortlessly, and gracefully. I wondered if he had his crutches stashed somewhere upstairs, maybe next to his bed, or next to the chair he had been sitting in, or if this was the way he went everywhere in the house. Surely he must have crutches I thought. He didn't come all the way down-he stopped about four steps from the bottom, his cast swinging with the residual energy of his athletic descent. He told me Richard had an eye infection and had been admitted to the hospital the day before, and asked if I would walk the dog. It was pretty clear to me he couldn't walk the dog, even with a pair of crutches. The way she pulled at the leash, he would have ended up flat on his face, perhaps with his other leg broken in the process. Once again overwhelmed by the reality of a man in a cast right in front of me, I failed to ask him anything at all about himself or his apparent injury. As soon as I was out on the sidewalk with the dog I began to kick myself, but at least I knew I had a second shot at this one. I had to return with the dog, and I would surely see him again. I rehearsed in my head the whole time we walked the litany of questions I would ask him. I burst back into the house with as cheerful and exuberant an exclamation as I could muster. But my entrance was met with a muffled voice from upstairs (from behind a closed door?) that said "great, just leave the dog and hang the leash by the door." And that was that. Who was this man? Was he alone? Was Richard in fact in the house? Had this guy been living there the whole time I'd been walking the dog? Was his leg really broken, or did I interrupt some rec-cast adventure this guy was in the midst of? I'll never know-I never saw him or his cast again. Just another frustrating cast sighting and a residual host of unanswered questions. Sometimes I think I should have been an ortho-tech guy. You know-the guy in the hospital who gets to put the casts on. Just imagine-putting casts on people all day long. Maybe I could have become a specialist-you know-someone who only put casts on guys' legs. I could spend time with as many guys in casts as I wanted. No more near misses with my car-no more sneaking around and peeking in windows-no more hanging out at the emergency room waiting for a broken ankle to roll in. Maybe I could've even become kind of famous-you know-the best caster around. World renowned. Guys with broken ankles and broken legs from all over the world would be calling for me, wanting me to come put their leg in the perfect cast. I'd be flying to Berlin and Saudi Arabia and Los Angeles to put casts on these hunky young men with painfully broken ankles. Hmmm. Sounds nice. The stuff that dreams are made of. Although come to think of it I would probably have lost my job long ago for hitting on the patients. Nothing like taking your work home with you. That must be malpractice of some sort. I guess in the end it's safer to just be a kind of an orthopedic peeping Tom, always on the lookout for a guy in a cast. But enough about my frustration with my cast sightings. A sighting after all, is a sighting, and should not be disparaged or belittled. Any sighting, no matter how brief, is better than going months and months without seeing any guys on crutches or without seeing a single guy with his leg in a cast. That's when you begin to become convinced that no one breaks his ankle anymore. Or you conclude that medical science has ruined casts. After all, a guy these days is more likely to end up with one of those ugly plastic walking boots than a heart-stoppingly beautiful cast that requires him to drag himself around on crutches for six or eight weeks. Ever feel that way? Never mind. I do have a story to tell. About a real live man with his leg in a cast. I had just moved to Washington, DC, and in fact I was staying in a temporary place while I was looking for a more permanent place to live. It was Friday night. It was too early to go to the bars, so I was in the bookstore. I had met some nice people since I moved, but I didn't really have anyone in my life I would call a friend, and even though I was staying just off Du Pont Circle, I hadn't met anyone to get naked with. And I hadn't seen anyone in a cast! So I was horny, and kind of depressed, and feeling desperately cast-deprived, and cruising the bookstore just wasn't doing the trick. Why didn't Tom Bianchi or Bruce Weber ever take pictures of naked guys on the beach with casts on their ankles? I was debating whether to call it an early night, or head to the bars early and start drinking to try to numb the emptiness I was feeling inside. Nobody thumbing through the porn in the back of the store looked remotely interesting to me, and I couldn't even find a book on the shelves that I was interested in buying. It seemed like this store in particular had more lube and condoms and greeting cards with buff naked guys on them and rainbow paraphernalia than it had actual books. Gay bookstores seemed to sell everything except books these days. So my mood was pissy and I was about to remove myself from the premises when I saw him. I had turned from the magazine section to walk to the front of the store, and suddenly, unexpectedly, amazingly, there he was. It was like a dream. He looked as if he had just stepped off of the playing field. Or like he had just strode out the front door of his fraternity. He had a letter jacket on. And it looked like a real one-not one of those horrible things you can order from International Male. He was tall. He was fair-he had sandy colored hair and light skin with freckles and red cheeks from the cold. His chin was square, and strong looking. His shoulders were broad, and his waist was narrow. In almost any other setting, I would have been tempted to wager a fair amount of money in a bet with anyone who wanted to try to persuade me that this man was not straight. But here he was, in a gay bookstore in Du Pont Circle, paging through the most recent releases on the erotic fiction shelf. And you know where I'm going with this tale. That's right. No kidding around. He was leaning on a pair of wooden crutches. And he was wearing a cast. Right leg. Long leg cast. Looked to me at first glance like it went right up to his hip. Naked toes sticking out of it. Nice comfortable bend to the knee. No heel on the cast for walking. New looking cast. Not more than a couple of days old. Blue jeans-Levis-looked to be button-fly-with the right leg cut off above the knee and what remained of the thigh slit up the outside seam right up to the top of his cast. Standing there staring at him like I was I could see a spot of flesh-naked skin-right at the top of his cast-where the cast ended and the slit in his jeans just kept going-a pink triangle of human boy hip flesh. And then just a big white expanse of hard, rigid, fiber cast. I am not a religious man, but right on the spot in the middle of that bookstore I found myself praying. Give me this man and I will do anything you ask me to. Let me not fuck this up. Please don't let him get away. I want him. I need him. Take my money. Take my job. Take my clothes. Take my soul. Just give him to me. It is the only thing I will ever ask of you. And right then, as if by way of heavenly response, this crippled demi-god looked up from his shelf of erotic fiction and looked right at me. Our eyes met, dead on. With all of my strength I willed him to want me. I willed him to be desperate enough to hold my gaze. But you know what happens next. You can see it coming. Desperate as I was, even I could anticipate it-could feel it before it happened. He turned and looked away from me as if he had never seen me-or worse-as if he had seen nothing at all. Our eyes had locked. I had seen my heart's deepest desire-everything I had ever fantasized about since I was a kid. And he had seen nothing. His image would be burned into my memory for the rest of my life, and I knew that if he were confronted with my face five minutes later it would be as if he had never seen me before. And then, despite my fervent prayers, he turned on his crutches to go. His strong arms carried him and his cast toward the door. My response was wholly involuntary. I had no choice. I followed him. Once outside he turned right, and walked north on Connecticut, heading up the hill. The street was crowded, and he moved slowly. His course was deliberate. He led with his crutches, reaching forward, and then pulling his body through after, his casted leg swinging from back to front and back again. I hung back, matching his pace, stopping to look in store windows if I got too near. Sometimes, because of all of the people on the street with us, my view of his cast would become completely obstructed. But always the red from his letter jacket was in my view. Always the shoulders hunched over the crutches. Always his curly sandy hair. And when periodically the crowd would part, I could see his ass through his jeans, working hard to carry him and his cast awkwardly up the hill. Hands in my pockets, I fingered my own hard cock as we walked. At Florida he turned right, and I followed, realizing suddenly that I was indeed stalking this man and his cast. Then in another block he turned off the busy cross street and onto a small quiet residential street lined with old apartment buildings. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. We were the only two people on the dark street. How could I explain myself if he should turn and confront me? In fact I lived in the opposite direction that we were walking. He was moving slower now. Because he was tired? Because he knew I was following him? I did not have the luxury of the shop windows to stop and dawdle in front of to put more distance between us, and it was almost too artificial for me to slow my pace further to match his. In another dozen paces I would be even with him, and then past him. I was thinking I should say something clever as I passed him. I imagined myself saying something like "tough break" as I jauntily sauntered up next to him. I imagined his response. "Yeah, I broke it playing football this weekend. We had a pickup game in the park." And then we would be having a conversation. I would be talking to a man with a cast on his leg. It was just a matter of getting the first words out. Another two steps and this would really be my last chance to engage this guy, and I so didn't want to fuck it up. I was but half a pace behind him when he spoke. "You're following me." "I'm sorry?" I stopped dead. He pushed on another two steps and then he too stopped. And then he turned to face me. "You're following me." "I'm not." Immediately I was defensive, fearful, lying. "You are. From the bookstore." In the bookstore he had looked right through me. How had he known I was following him? He had never turned to look at me until now. "No, really, I'm just...I guess we're going the same way." "Where are you going?" He was cross-examining me. I was wilting."To...just over...a friend's house...near here." Without his cast and crutches I knew he could beat the shit out of me. As it was, I was pretty confident I could outrun him. The logical thing to do was turn on my heel and go. But I couldn't. "I don't believe you. Why are you following me?" "I...you...you caught my eye...back at the bookstore..." "You follow everybody who catches your eye?" "No I...it's just, you know, you made an impression, I mean..." "You mean with my leg." "I mean, you know, you stand out..." "I can't even stand up." "I think you're handsome." "Come on." "Where?" "My place. You might as well come up for a drink. I gotta get my leg up. I could use the company. You seem harmless enough." "Yeah, well. I'd like that. A drink." "Come on." And off we went. And that is how I met Paul. His apartment was tiny, and cluttered. It was a third story walk up, and the steps seemed to just about do him in. When we finally made it in to his apartment he collapsed almost immediately into the armchair that was just inside the door. He leaned heavily against the wall outside the door while he fished the keys from his pocket, trying to balance on one leg and juggle his crutches in one hand and not topple over. Once he opened the door he flicked on the light, moved inside the door pulling himself with his crutches, and then lowered himself heavily and clumsily into the arm chair with an audible sigh that was almost a moan. With his eyes shut tight he slowly raised his casted leg up onto the mismatched ottoman in front of the chair. "Oh, fuck." "You O.K.?" I was standing awkwardly just inside the door. "Yeah. I just need to get this leg up. Hurts like a sonofabitch. There's beers in the 'fridge. If you wouldn't mind. I could use one. There's some vodka in the kitchen too if you'd rather." "No. Beer is fine. Hang on." I found my way to the kitchen and brought our beers back to the front room where he was still sitting, immobile, with his leg up. "Thanks man." I sucked in my breath and launched my question. "What happened?" I was staring at his lovely wonderful toes sticking up out of the cast. "I really fucked it up." "Yeah? How?" "Long story. Stupid story. I have one of those Razor scooters I've been using to get to work. I teach at the Saint Albans School. And coach. Just started my job there this fall. Fucking eight weeks ago. Anyhow, yesterday? Two days ago. I was on the skooter, heading down the hill. Some fucker runs a stop sign. Hits me. Fucking runs into me with his car." "Shit." "Yeah. Totally fucked up. Broke my tibia in two places. Right below the knee and just above the ankle. Broke my foot in two places. He really laid me out good. I'm really fucked. I'm stuck in this cast for eight weeks, at least, and then another shorter cast after that. I can't put any weight on it. I can't work-no coaching, no teaching. I'm fucked." "Hey, it's not so bad." "Bad? It's terrible. I hate this cast. I can't do anything. It takes me fucking ten minutes to put on a pair of underwear. I can't shower. Last night I fucking got stuck in the covers on my bed and couldn't roll over. And the crutches are killing me. Look at this. Blisters on both hands. My ribs are bruised. I get winded just fucking walking down the hill to the bookstore. Three blocks and I'm shot. I can't go anywhere. I'm up on it fifteen minutes and the whole thing starts throbbing-my foot, my ankle, my knee. I'm bored to death already. And horny as a motherfucker. And I can't even go out to the bars-not like this. Shit, I can't even walk to the fucking bookstore and back. Look at these fucking blisters!" He was yelling, and sounded like he was almost on the verge of tears. He pounded most of his beer down in a single chugging gulp. Definitely a former fraternity brother, I thought. I couldn't keep my eyes off his cast. "If ummm, you know, I mean if you want, I'd be happy to, umm, you know, help out. I mean lend you a hand. You know, with, whatever." Oh god. I was a stammering idiot. "Yeah?" He looked at me, I mean really looked at me, for the first time. "Well, yeah. Sure." "I guess I'd like that. I could use a hand." "I guess you could." We were both smiling like fools. Big grins. "Yeah I guess I sure could." |
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