Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

A guy next to me is handsome, swarthy, lean - but he's uptight in a silly masculine way: "dude" or "hey, man." His cock is nice, though it doesn't grow as he flirts with me and makes me flirt with him. He repositions slightly, inches closer along the steam room's wet shelf. They've been running this thing so hot you can barely see and I can barely see his dick which isn't growing as he touches my foot with his foot like an accident but intentionality is a foregone conclusion. He plays with my foot with his foot and doesn't remember we did this once before. He smiles at me furtively through the steam though it's a weak little smile not a sly one because he's carrying shame in a way that stifles pleasure. It gets too hot, I leave and shower; we reconvene in the dry sauna. He's sitting across from me and rests his foot on the wooden slats surrounding the heating mechanism. I'm not sure what he wants, what to do. He says, "Put your foot up." I stretch and as if it were comfortable and as if it were something I wanted to do place my foot so it's facing his. He makes them meet like they're mirror images and softly moves his sole over mine. His cock is no bigger and neither, now, is mine. There's something too deliberate too narrowly fetishistic in this gesture in a place where wilder things happen routinely. Later when we're drying off and dressing I invite him over to capitalize on the foreplay. "Hey, man, thanks, but I've got to go shop for dinner." Another time, I say - and realize I've been had: Footsies must equal third base to this dude. I consider my feet which have completed him, and drive home leaning on their shame and the delicious certainty of having been used.