My name is martin short and i love men (specifically, nerds)
Perfect smiles and practiced charm never do much for me. What draws me in are the men who keep adjusting their glasses mid-sentence, the ones whose frames sit a little crooked after they’ve pushed them up for the third time. I love the way those lenses catch the light and turn ordinary eyes into something quietly thoughtful. Every time a nerd fusses with his glasses while answering one of my questions, I feel a private spark of interest I never show on camera.
Their bodies appeal to me in a different way. I have a soft spot for what I privately call “smart humps”—the unsculpted, lived-in shapes of men who spend more time reading than training. I like the gentle slope of a bookish frame, the unassuming lines of someone who has never chased a mirror physique. Those shapes feel honest to me. They suggest a mind that has been busy with other things, and that quiet authenticity is far more interesting than any carefully maintained exterior.
Their clothes only add to the charm. Oversized cardigans with slightly frayed cuffs, button-downs that never quite match the trousers, sneakers worn from walking between libraries or coffee shops—I notice every detail. There’s something endearing about the way those outfits never try too hard. When I see one of them in a rumpled sweater or a shirt that’s seen better days, I already feel more at ease than I do around anyone in a tailored suit.
Their awkward movements are pure gold. A nerd who nearly knocks over a glass while pulling out a chair, who fumbles with a door handle, who blushes when our knees bump under the table—these are the moments I remember long after the interview ends. I find a kind of grace in the hesitation, a warmth in the lack of polished confidence. Those small stumbles make them feel real, and real is what I prefer.
Above all, I love their insecurity about how they come across. The quiet worry in their eyes when they second-guess a joke, the soft apology if they think they’ve talked too long, the earnest way they ask whether they answered the question well—these things disarm me completely. I always try to put them at ease, because their honesty and slight self-doubt are what make them special. In those moments I’m not just the celebrity reporter; I’m simply someone who prefers brilliant, awkward, thoughtful men who never quite realise how interesting they already are/
Get ready to be surprised, my dear readers! We are about to meet a nerd who will steal your hearts—before, during, and after.
... I am in the city of Sacramento today, and May has already brought the first real feeling of summer to California's capital. The morning air is warm but still gentle, and the light falls brightly across the broad streets, old trees and low buildings of the city. I like Sacramento's mixture of government buildings, quiet residential neighborhoods and the older streets around the river. It feels less restless than San Francisco or Los Angeles, but there is a pleasant confidence to it, as if the city knows exactly what it is and has no need to prove anything.
On May mornings, Sacramento begins early. People fill the cafés before work, cyclists appear on the streets, and the sidewalks gradually become busy with students, office workers and people running errands. The trees provide welcome patches of shade as the sun climbs higher, and there is already enough warmth in the air to remind me that summer is coming. From my taxi window I watch the city waking up around me, catching glimpses of parks, gardens, small shops and the occasional beautifully maintained old house between the newer buildings.
In the afternoon, the heat becomes much more noticeable. I spend part of the day exploring the central streets and walking along the river, where the breeze makes the temperature easier to forget. Sacramento's wide spaces and relatively low skyline give the afternoon a relaxed quality. There is room to stop, sit in the shade and watch people passing by. I also begin to notice how much of the city's character comes from its ordinary details: bicycles leaning against railings, people carrying coffee, workers taking lunch outside and families enjoying the parks.
In the evening, Sacramento becomes quieter and softer. The intense brightness of the afternoon fades, and the warm air makes the city feel almost leisurely. Restaurants begin filling their outdoor tables, people gather for drinks after work, and the streets around the older parts of the city take on a different atmosphere. I like this time of day especially because Sacramento no longer feels like a capital city or a place of government offices. It simply feels like a California city settling into a warm May evening, with another long day slowly coming to an end.
As I ride in the taxi toward my hotel, I start observing the extraordinary number of handsome guys in this town; three of them I remembered particularly clearly.
The first appeared at a gas station just outside the airport. I called him The Mechanic. He was young, tall and lean, wearing work trousers and a faded blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His hands were dirty with grease, and he was standing beside an old pickup truck, studying something under the hood with an expression of profound concentration. I watched him for perhaps twenty seconds before deciding that he had probably inherited the truck from his grandfather, repaired it himself and knew exactly which screw was making trouble. I imagined him living in a modest house somewhere outside Sacramento, keeping a dog, fixing things for his neighbors and secretly dreaming about restoring the truck completely. He looked like a man who could spend an entire Saturday covered in oil and consider it a successful day.
I imagine he has a come-and-go girlfriend who is rather annoyed by his oily pants and shirts but loves the way he smells after work. When she is visiting, she meets him with dinner, sometimes gets in the shower with him, covers him in a thick coat of lather, and doesn’t hurry to wash it off. Instead, they stand in the shower kissing until he drags her out, wet and everything, and the bed then takes the punishment for his difficult day and her long waiting.
His dick serves him well. It is not a giant, but big enough to make the bed buddy happy, ever since he fucked his scout camp tentmate in his senior high school year. Gently cut, at your average 6 slender inches it curves up slightly and drips very readily. He is a fast fucker, so minutes later she is screaming her head off and his balls slap loudly on her butt. When sparks subside and rainbows pale, she scolds him for getting the sheets wet, climbs out, makes him get out, too, and changes the sheets grudgingly, but you can tell she is happy. For who could wish for more: a handsome man with golden hands, which know not only how to fix the car but also how to make a tired and lonely girl see heaven on a simple bed in a studio apartment and lets you watch his dick dangle back to charming smallness as you scold him…
Ah, I wish as I pass you, Mechanic, that I could climb out, lift that apron and grab your bulge, just to see your face change, to happy or angry I care not, you sexy bastard…
A few miles farther on, I spotted The Cyclist waiting at a traffic light. He was wearing black cycling shorts, a bright helmet and a backpack, and his bicycle looked much more expensive than anything I had ever owned. He had the sort of athletic build that made me immediately suspicious of his breakfast habits. I imagined that he worked in an office during the week and disappeared into the countryside every weekend, covering ridiculous distances before breakfast. Perhaps he had a group of friends who met at six every Saturday morning and considered eighty kilometers a pleasant warm-up. He looked at his watch impatiently as the light remained red, and I decided that he was probably the kind of man who hated being late for anything.
When he comes home, I imagine, he is alone there, so when his young cock, thick but short, viciously cut with a huge scar around a mushroom head, gives him a warning, his favorite porno folder is just a click away.
He loves messy cake sex and if he were brave enough, he’d take to Grindr and choose from dozens of hungry gay responses with offers from muffins to huge wedding cakes that make a slippery sweet bed for him and his date. It will be either another slender twink or a daddy with a beer tummy who has a booming laugh and cums on his nipples after The Cyclist shoots his hungry four thick spurts with the daddy’s dick still inside him, pieces of cake flying everywhere, Daddy laughing, him moaning, you see the picture…
If I had you for an evening, Cyclist, I’d drag off those sweaty cycling pants, and carry your slender frame to the bathroom, where two cakes will be waiting in the bath. I’d splat, I'd smush you onto the waiting cake and roll you around good in that messiness before turning you over and fucking you as you hold for dear life to the edge of the bath, your broken moans echoing off the tiled walls. Your thin body will be dwarfed by mine, and your ass will get its first really girthy dick. It will hurt, Cyclist, but only until you relax. Ha and then I’d add some syrup on your back and lick it off as my dick thrusts into you on the finishing stretch. You’ll shudder and say “ah, fuck” and I’ll know that you came, my thin thing with strong legs. When you will be ready to leave, your butt still hurting but not from the saddle as usual, I’ll help you put on that ridiculous helmet. Just because. I would like that.
Then, as I approached downtown, I saw The Reader sitting outside a coffee shop. He was perhaps twenty-five, wearing a simple white shirt and dark trousers, with a paperback open in one hand and a cup of coffee beside him. He had dark curly hair, glasses and a wonderfully serious expression. Unlike my mechanic and my cyclist, he looked completely unaware of the world around him.
I immediately invented a complicated life for him. Perhaps he was a graduate student, perhaps he was writing a novel, perhaps he was simply the sort of young man who preferred books to parties. I imagined him living in a tiny apartment filled with books, arguing about literature with his friends and occasionally falling hopelessly in love with people who didn't read enough.
You’d read to me as I would be getting ready to join you in bed, Reader. You will lie there, serious-looking, naked, your dick resting peacefully on your large pink balls, uncircumcised but with the foreskin so short that your small bluish glans would be perpetually open. I’d dive on top of you, and you’d show me the master class of kissing first. Your lovely big lips will take my lower lip prisoner, and your fucking glasses would regularly hit me on the corner of my own eyes until I just take them off and throw them away. And your tongue that can speak three languages, oh, it would be discovering distant worlds in my mouth, fighting my poor little pink tonguey, until I give up and let it do what it wants.
When you get hard, your cock wouldn’t get much larger, it would just thicken and harden and hang down under its weight, and you’d hover over me. You don’t do anal, I know, so we’ll just lazily frot our dicks together, mine – large, uncut, with an overhang even when erect, and your bare-headed column of a young cock; my big loose balls and your tight dark sack with a slightly paler stripe that you once proudly told me was a “scrotal raphe.”
You’d first start comparing us frotting to how Van Gogh attempted to frot Gauguin, but soon the slapping of my cockhead now bare against your perineum would do its job, and you’ll grunt-inhale-wizzz-exhale faster and faster, louder and louder, until your intellectual hand, which is now holding a book on Philosophy of Science would grab our two dicks together and milk them until we shoot – I with five small murky drops and you with a huge single arc of pearly cum all the way to my nipples.
Come with me now, Reader, come and cum with me… Ah, too late, damn that corner, now I’ll be thinking about you.
My Sacramento LEX ad said:
Martin, gay, versatile, HIV and STD free –tested June 2026
Looking for twinks/nerds/hunks into slim Daddy types.
Let’s aim for a full day together first.
Conversation, walking, food, whatever feels natural. If the chemistry is there, more can come later — no pressure, no scripts. Show me the city so that I get to love it.
Challenge:
Send me 8 real facts about yourself. I’ll reply with 8 more of mine if I like what I read. My 8:
- Professor of cultural anthropology at a Canadian university
- 42, 6'1", lean, dark hair going silver at the temples, glasses for reading
- I live alone in a quiet apartment full of books and bad houseplants
- I cook better than I admit and will feed you if you let me
- I’ve done fieldwork in the Caucasus and still miss the long dinners
- Dry sense of humour, terrible at small talk, excellent at staying up too late talking
- Looking for someone curious, kind, and able to hold a real conversation
- Prefer slow starts. A shared day is the only way I know how to begin
Your turn. Eight facts. No photos required until we both feel like it.
Quinn's response:
Hi Martin,
I hope you don't mind me writing this much. I started typing a short reply and somehow it became this enormous thing, which is probably already telling you something about me.
I saw your profile and stopped. I don't usually stop. Most of the things I read on here make me think, well, that's Grindr, people are saying what they want and there's nothing particularly surprising about it. But yours felt different. There was something about the way you described yourself, and especially the way you said you wanted to get to know someone before deciding where the evening might go.
I don't know how to explain this without sounding completely ridiculous, but there was something almost father-like in the feeling I had when I looked at your picture. Not literally, and not in some strange way. I mean warmth. Calm. The feeling that there might be a person behind the profile who knows how to make another person feel safe. I had this sudden feeling that if I were sitting across from you somewhere, having a drink and talking about absolutely nothing important, I would probably feel very comfortable.
And that's actually quite unusual for me.
Your ad was the first one I've read tonight that felt absolutely safe.
I don't mean safe in the boring sense of the word. I mean emotionally safe. Like I wouldn't have to perform anything for you. I wouldn't have to pretend to be more confident or more interesting or more experienced than I am. I could simply be there.
And something moved inside me when I read it. I honestly don't know what it was. Maybe I'm projecting an entire imaginary person onto a few lines on a screen, which is probably what people do all the time on apps like this. Maybe tomorrow I'll read this message and wonder what on earth I was thinking.
But right now I have this very strong feeling that I'd like to meet you.
I'd like to have dinner with you. Or a drink. Or walk around the city with you. I'd like to hear you talk about whatever you're interested in, even if I don't understand half of it. I'd like to find out what you're like when you're not writing an ad for strangers.
And yes, I noticed what you said about looking for a top tonight. I'm not pretending I didn't. But somehow that isn't the first thing I want to know about you.
The first thing I want to know is whether the person I imagine from your profile is actually there.
If you'd like to meet, call me.
I mean that.
[phone number redacted]
Quinn
P.S. My eight facts:
- I am a Ph.D. student in Acoustic Design. I design acoustic panels for buildings for various purposes;
- I like teaching, so I tutor math and stats to neighborhood kids;
- In Sacramento, I live alone in a craftsman house I am now repairing;
- I have many international friends. I have just returned from a trip to Mexico to see my friend Miguel.
- I am an avid gamer, I exercise in my garage, and collect vinyls of rock music;
- Come rain or shine, I run every morning in the park a few miles from my home
- I like playing the guitar for friends. If no one is listening, I play for the stars. They hear me.
- I am an avid swimmer. In the summer, I’ll take you to the beach, and show you my Dolphin Leap if you ask nicely.
After a rather boring exchange of messages, we agreed to meet at my hotel. I came downstairs at 3 p.m. sharp and saw him already waiting for me in the hotel lobby. He noticed me almost immediately and came toward me with a huge smile that seemed to arrive before the rest of him. He shook my hand politely, but with a gentle squeeze, the kind of handshake that felt warm and personal rather than merely formal.
“Good afternoon, you’re Martin, right?”
“Yeah, hi, no need to be so formal. Quinn?”
“Yeah, alright. So wow, you are a cultural anthropologist?”
I answered and he followed up with another question, looking absolutely sincerely interested. I found myself enjoying the conversation before we had even left the lobby. Quinn had a slightly awkward way of moving, but it was difficult to notice for long because his manner was so naturally pleasant. There was no attempt to impress me, no practiced charm, no sense that he was performing for a journalist. He was simply delighted that I had come, and that made him absolutely charming.
He was wearing a wrinkled white cotton shirt with very thin blue stripes that made it look almost blue, light beige slacks and suede moccasins. The shirt was not quite as neat as I might have expected from a man who was about to go on a date with a professor, but somehow it suited him. His slight hunch and awkward movements only added to the impression that he was much more comfortable thinking about things than thinking about himself.
After a little more conversation, his expression brightened.
“I thought our first stop should be the theater. I have designed a stage for them,” he said. “If we are lucky, we’ll meet Misha Arefyev, my friend and ballet star. He’ll be there this morning, and I think you’ll enjoy meeting him.”
“I’d love that,” I told him.
“Wonderful. Shall we go?”
He seemed genuinely excited now, and I could see that the theater was something he had been looking forward to sharing with me. I followed him toward the entrance. Outside, the May morning was already warm, and I knew that the heat would become stronger as the day went on.
But I was ready to face it.
With such an attentive host, how could I not be?
***
The theater was already busy when we arrived. Just before the foyer, in the mud room, a huge bronze plaque covered part of the wall. I glanced at it as we passed and then stopped. Quinn's name was there, modestly placed among the people responsible for the new stage:
Stage design: Alex Paynton, engineer; Dean Soderberg, construction manager; Quinn Alston, acoustic design...
Six more names followed.
I looked at Quinn, but he only smiled and kept walking, as though seeing his name cast in bronze on a huge plaque was the most ordinary thing in the world. There was no pause, no proud gesture, not even a comment. He simply seemed more interested in getting me to the stage.
We had barely crossed the foyer when a busy administrator appeared. He was giving rapid instructions to several members of the crew, turning from one person to another and pointing toward different parts of the theater. Then he noticed Quinn. His expression immediately changed into a broad smile, and he came over to us.
“Quinn! Good morning!”
They shook hands, and he ushered us toward the stage. He was clearly in the middle of a dozen things at once, but he seemed to know exactly where he wanted us to go.
And then I saw Misha Arefyev. He was enormous, tall and broad, with thick salt-and-pepper hair and the kind of physical presence that made the stage seem slightly smaller around him. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, although there was nothing old-fashioned or tired about him. He was energetic, alert and already dressed for rehearsal, completely ready to work.
“Misha,” Quinn said after shaking his hand, “This is Martin, my friend from Canada!”
“Martin!” he said warmly. “Welcome. I am very pleased to meet you.”
He shook my hand and then glanced at me with a sudden smile.
For a moment, the two of them looked at each other, apparently pleased by this unexpected connection. Then Quinn glanced toward the stage floor.
“We should probably have a look,” he said.
“Yes,” Misha agreed. “Before rehearsal starts.”
They apologized to me almost simultaneously.
“Give us a few minutes,” Quinn said.
“We'll be right here,” Misha added.
Then the two men crouched down together and began inspecting the floor panels. Their entire manner changed as soon as they started examining the stage. They pointed at small sections, leaned closer, touched the edges of the panels and exchanged a few quiet words that I could not quite hear. I stood back and watched them, suddenly seeing not two interesting men but two professionals completely absorbed in something they understood far better than I did.
I took out my phone.
Quinn noticed me just as I snapped the picture.
For once, he didn't smile.
***
We watched the rehearsal from the main box, and I was smitten almost immediately. The dancing was superb, but it was Misha who kept drawing my eyes back to the stage. The moment he began dancing, something extraordinary happened. The huge, energetic man in his fifties seemed to turn twenty again. His movements became light, powerful and completely assured, and whatever age he carried off the stage simply disappeared when he began to dance.
Quinn sat beside me, watching with the concentration of someone who was listening as much as looking. Misha occasionally stopped the dancers and called instructions from the stage, and his voice carried through the entire theater without any apparent effort.
“Again!” he shouted. “From the beginning!”
The dancers immediately reset themselves. A few moments later he stopped them again, his voice booming through the auditorium as he corrected a movement or demanded greater precision. I found myself looking around the enormous theater, wondering how he could possibly be heard so clearly without a microphone.
Quinn leaned toward me.
“That is partly the floor,” he whispered. “When we're using it for ballet, it responds to the orchestra. But we can switch it for opera, too. Then it carries the singers' voices through the theater without microphones.”
I looked at him.
“So the floor can carry voices?”
“Exactly.”
He seemed quietly pleased that I had understood the trick. Then we returned our attention to the rehearsal.
When it finally ended, Misha's mood changed dramatically. From somewhere behind the stage came a furious stream of Russian, loud enough that we could hear every other word from the box. Misha was giving the dancers his usual dressing-down, and from the sound of it, I imagined that nobody was particularly eager to argue with him.
Quinn glanced at me.
“We should go.”
We slipped out before Misha could see us, trying not to laugh as his voice continued to thunder behind us.
“He is happy with them,” Quinn said as we walked away.
I looked at him skeptically.
“He sounds furious.”
“He is. But he is happy with them.”
I laughed.
“Then why is he shouting?”
Quinn gave me that guilty little smile.
“It's just for the discipline.”
***
After the theater, Quinn took me to Le Salon Doré, courtesy of Misha Arefyev, for what he called “the art lunch.” Lunch at almost 5.30 p.m., I thought to myself.
The moment we walked in, I felt that we had made a terrible mistake about our clothes. The café was all gold and white, elegant without being stiff, with the atmosphere of a little Parisian salon that had somehow wandered into the theater district. Quinn looked down at his wrinkled striped shirt and beige slacks, then at me, and gave me his familiar guilty smile. I suspected he was feeling exactly as out of place as I was.
Nobody seemed to care. We were received with such cordiality that our embarrassment gradually disappeared. We were shown to our table, and Quinn explained why we were having lunch at three in the afternoon.
“This is what they call the art lunch,” he told me.
“The art lunch?”
“Yes. The performers have a different schedule from everybody else. If they're performing at seven-thirty, they need to feel as though it's noon.”
Suddenly, the strange timing made perfect sense. The café was part of the theater's rhythm, and its late lunch was designed around the people who would spend their evening on stage.
Then I discovered that even lunch at Le Salon Doré was a performance. Everything was served on silver, with beautiful gold forks and spoons that seemed almost too elegant to touch. Quinn behaved as though this were perfectly normal, while I was still trying to decide whether I was actually allowed to eat with such magnificent cutlery.
Then came the foie gras, followed by avocado and duck canapé sandwiches, each one looking far too beautiful to be called a sandwich. I watched Quinn happily begin eating, which reassured me that I was not expected to sit there admiring the food all afternoon. The flavors were exquisite, and the whole experience felt wonderfully excessive.
Then they brought the cake.
It was called the Ballet World, and it was decorated with real gold leaves. I stared at it.
“Quinn,” I said, “is that actually gold?”
He looked at the cake, then at me.
“I believe so.”
I laughed because I could not think of anything else to do. After the rehearsal, the stage, Misha's booming voice and Quinn's extraordinary acoustic invention, I had somehow arrived at a café where I was being served cake covered in real gold.
And then there was the coffee.
It was exquisite and “bottomless.” Every time my cup became empty, someone appeared to fill it again. I finally stopped trying to understand what was happening and simply surrendered to the experience.
I was beyond shocked. Quinn, meanwhile, sat opposite me in his wrinkled shirt and moccasins, looking perfectly happy and slightly guilty, as though he had somehow been responsible for all of it.
***
By the time dusk began to settle over Sacramento, Quinn had turned our walk along the waterfront into what I privately called the Acoustictest Tour of My Life, although he hardly mentioned acoustics at all. He first took me toward Tower Bridge, where the last light of the day was catching the pale structure and turning the river beneath it a deep, shifting blue. Quinn kept looking at me rather than at the bridge, apparently much more interested in whether I liked the view than in explaining anything about it. “Wait,” he said once, gently taking my arm and making me turn toward the river. “Look at that.” I looked, took several pictures, and then took one of him. He was smiling so happily that I couldn't resist.
A little farther along, he brought me to a quiet stretch of the waterfront and asked me to stop for a moment. “Listen,” he said. There were footsteps behind us, water against the shore, distant traffic and voices somewhere across the river. The sounds seemed to mingle and fade naturally around us. Quinn gave me only the briefest explanation that the buildings helped carry the sound, then immediately abandoned the subject. “It's nice here,” he said. That was clearly what he wanted me to remember. I watched his face as he listened, and I realized that he wasn't giving me a lecture at all. He was sharing one of his favorite little pieces of Sacramento.
He showed me Old Sacramento next, and I loved the change in atmosphere. The wooden sidewalks, old buildings and warm evening light made the place seem almost detached from the modern city around it. Quinn walked slowly, pointing out little details that I might otherwise have missed: an old doorway, a sign, a balcony, the way the evening light fell between the buildings. Once, he mentioned that he liked the way the wooden surfaces softened the sounds of people's footsteps, but that was as technical as he allowed himself to become. Mostly, he wanted me to look. I took dozens of photographs, and several of them were of Quinn rather than Sacramento. He looked incredibly handsome when he was happy and slightly agitated, especially when he was trying to make sure I had seen exactly what he wanted me to see.
Near the riverboats, Quinn became almost boyishly excited. He pointed them out, told me a little about their history and then led me toward a spot where we could see them reflected in the darkening river. The boats, the old buildings and the evening sky seemed to belong to another time. Quinn stood beside me, hands in his pockets, smiling at the view. “This is why I wanted to bring you here,” he said. I thought he meant the riverboats, but I wasn't entirely sure. Perhaps he simply wanted me to see Sacramento as he saw it: not as a collection of attractions, but as a city full of beautiful corners that became especially lovely when the working day was over.
Finally, we reached the railing and stood watching the lights stretch and tremble across the water. Quinn was quiet for a while. I waited, half expecting him to tell me something about reflections or sound, but he didn't. He simply looked out over the river and smiled. “I like this part,” he said softly. I took another photograph, then another, and suddenly realized that I had been photographing him almost as much as the city. Quinn's charm was strongest when he forgot about being charming—when he became excited, happy and slightly awkward because he wanted me to enjoy something he loved. I had arrived in Sacramento expecting to just have a random nerd date. By the time we turned back toward the city lights, I was beginning to fall for Quinn.
***
As the summer dusk gathered, Quinn walked me to a parking lot only a block from my hotel and stopped beside his car.
“I have one more thing to show you,” he said.
I looked at him curiously.
“Would you like to go stargazing?”
My answer was an absolutely enthusiastic yes.
We climbed into his impeccably clean, light-blue old Subaru, and within minutes we were leaving the city behind. Quinn drove with a confidence that immediately impressed me. He was fast without being reckless, completely relaxed behind the wheel, and I felt absolutely safe beside him. The city lights gradually disappeared behind us as the road carried us farther into the wilderness, and the darkness outside the windows became deeper and quieter.
On the way, Quinn began telling me about Father Michael, a Catholic priest from his youth. His church had extraordinary acoustic properties, and as a teenager Quinn had helped him with psalm chanting. He remembered how the voices seemed to fill the church and linger in the air, and I could hear in his voice that those evenings had stayed with him.
“But Father Michael was an astrophysicist before he became a priest,” Quinn told me. “He had a Ph.D.”
I turned toward him, fascinated.
“He lost his wife and his two children in a car crash,” Quinn continued quietly. “After that, he became a priest.”
Then he told me about the other thing Father Michael did with the local boys. In the evenings, after everything else was finished, he took them outside and taught them about the stars. Quinn had been one of those boys. He learned the constellations, listened to stories about distant worlds and gradually developed the love of stargazing that he still carried with him. Something in me told me that Father Michael did more than just show stars to Quinn but I decided not to press the subject.
As Quinn drove deeper into the darkness, I began to understand that this evening was not simply another pleasant excursion he had invented for me. He was taking me back to something that had shaped him long before I had ever heard his name. And somehow, sitting beside him in that spotless old Subaru, listening to him talk about a priest, a church, psalms and the night sky, I was more fascinated by Quinn than ever.
***
We stopped in the desert in almost complete darkness, on a small parking lot beside a trail leading into the national park. Quinn switched off the engine, and for a moment neither of us said anything. Above us, the Milky Way stretched across the sky in a magnificent pale river of stars, so dense and bright that it seemed almost impossible to believe we were looking at the real night sky. Quinn stepped out, looked upward and began pointing toward different constellations. He started telling me about the stars, but I wasn't really listening anymore. I was looking at Quinn. And because I knew my readers would want to know exactly what had happened to me, here are five reasons why any reasonable gay man might fall for the awkward, four-eyed nerd Quinn Alston.
First, he wants you to be happy. Quinn had spent the entire day watching my reactions, noticing what made me smile, what interested me and what I photographed. He did not take me places to demonstrate how much he knew. He took me there because he wanted me to enjoy them.
Second, he is genuinely excited about things. He can become wonderfully agitated over almost anything he loves. His awkward movements return, his hands begin to move, his smile becomes slightly guilty and his words come faster. There is something irresistible about a grown man who has not learned to hide his enthusiasm. He doesn't pretend to be cool. He simply forgets to be cool.
Third, he makes you feel safe. He drove quickly, but with complete confidence, and I never once felt nervous beside him. There was the same quality in everything he did. He paid attention, noticed details, thought ahead and wanted me to be comfortable.
Fourth, he has a secret romantic soul. I had already seen it in the theater, in the way he wanted me to hear the music through his stage, and along the waterfront when he stopped to show me the lights on the river. Now he had driven me into the wilderness to show me the stars. Quinn might look like the world's most unlikely romantic hero, but he kept taking me to beautiful places after dark.
And fifth, he is completely himself when he forgets that you are watching. This was perhaps the most dangerous quality of all. Quinn was polished and confident when he talked about his work, but whenever he spoke about his guitar, his house, his old car, stargazing or the people who had influenced him, the awkward young man appeared again. He became shy, animated, uncertain and completely sincere.
I found myself wanting to know what else was hidden behind that guilty smile. Above us, the magnificent Milky Way seemed to go on forever. Quinn was still talking about the stars, pointing out constellations and explaining things I should probably have been listening to. I had no idea what he was saying. I was too busy watching the most charming nerd I had ever met stand beneath them.
***
Deep into the evening, when the desert had become completely still around us, Quinn opened the trunk of his old Subaru and produced a pack of hotdogs as though this were the most natural conclusion to a night beneath the stars. He started a small fire and began roasting them, sitting beside me and continuing his stories about the mythology of the stars. His voice sounded different out there in the darkness, softer and more intimate, and I found myself listening more closely. Then he told me about double stars that, by some extraordinary chance, crash into each other and somehow end up circling around each other forever. I looked at him across the fire and wondered whether I was supposed to believe that this was simply another astronomical story. Perhaps I was reading too much into it. But I thought I understood the metaphor.
We ate our hotdogs beside the slowly burning fire, and Quinn seemed perfectly content with our very simple dinner. He had brought a box of bottled water in the trunk, and after we had eaten, we sat quietly for a while, drinking water and watching the flames. There was something wonderfully old-fashioned about the whole evening. No restaurant, no music, no crowds, no elaborate plans—just a desert night, a little fire, two people and a sky full of stars. Quinn looked completely at home there, and I began to think that perhaps this was where his awkwardness disappeared most completely.
Then he opened the trunk again and took out a guitar.
I stared at him.
“You brought a guitar?”
He gave me that familiar guilty smile.
“I thought I might.”
He sat down beside the fire, adjusted the guitar and began to play. Then he started singing love songs to me. The fire had burned down by then, throwing a soft, uneven light across his face, while above us the Milky Way remained magnificent and impossibly vast. His voice was not the polished voice of a professional performer, but it was warm and sincere, and somehow that made it much more beautiful. He sang quietly, almost shyly, as though he had suddenly forgotten that the woman sitting beside him was a journalist who had come to write about him.
I did not interrupt him. I didn't take pictures either. For once, I wanted to keep something for myself. Quinn kept playing and singing as the fire slowly died down, and I sat beside him listening to the love songs beneath the stars. Somewhere above us, according to the story he had told me, two stars might have collided by chance and begun circling each other forever. I looked at Quinn, then at the dying fire, and decided that perhaps some metaphors were simply too beautiful to question.
***
Quinn drove me back to the hotel and stopped just a few steps from the entrance. We got out of the car immediately, neither of us seeming particularly interested in sitting there for another minute. The night air was warm, and the hotel doors opened and closed behind us as people came and went, but somehow the two of us had created our own little space on the pavement.
“Well,” Quinn said, looking at me with that familiar, slightly guilty smile, “I suppose this is where we decide.”
“I suppose it is.”
We stood there talking for a few more minutes, although neither of us had anything particularly important left to say. We talked about the evening, about the stars, about the music and the guitar, and then the conversation gradually became quieter. Quinn looked at me, hesitated, and seemed to gather enough courage to ask the question.
“Could I have a hug?”
I opened my arms without answering.
He stepped into them, and I held him close. For a moment he seemed almost surprised by how naturally I embraced him. Then his arms came around me, gently at first and then more securely. I could feel the tension leaving him, and when we pulled apart, neither of us moved very far away.
“Thank you for today,” he said. “If I am not your type…”
“Hold on, hold on,” I laughed. “First, it is I who should be thanking you.”
He smiled.
“I had a wonderful time.”
“So did I.”
There was another pause. Quinn looked at me again, and this time his hesitation was even more obvious.
“And perhaps…” He stopped, smiled nervously and tried again. “Perhaps I could have a kiss, too?”
I didn't make him ask twice. I stepped closer and kissed him, right there in front of the hotel entrance. When we parted, Quinn looked almost stunned, and I couldn't help smiling at his expression. He was still the same awkward, slightly hunched nerd who had greeted me that morning, but now he seemed wonderfully unsure of what to do next.
I touched his arm.
“I can't just let you go,” I whispered.
He looked at me for a long second.
Then he smiled.
We kissed again, still standing outside the hotel, with the doors opening behind us and people passing through the lobby. There was nothing theatrical about it. It was simply two people who had reached the end of a remarkable day and suddenly discovered that neither wanted the day to end.
When I finally turned toward the entrance, Quinn followed me. He was a little shy, and I could see that he was trembling slightly with anticipation, but he didn't hesitate.
We went inside together and headed upstairs to my room.
***
We knew what we were doing, so after the door clicked behind us, we undressed each other hungrily to our underwear. And it was at that moment that I got a phone call from my university’s academic director. The fucking straight asshole took six minutes of my life from me as he explained the paperwork for the next semester– at 8.40 in the evening!
But I didn’t spend the minutes in vain. I took the time to study my date in his discreet gray boxer shorts…
I looked at him lying in bed, casually reading a DJ set list we picked up downstairs. His glasses sat slightly crooked on his nose and those tiny gray boxer shorts left almost nothing to the imagination, the thin fabric stretched tight over a modest but thick outline of his erection and small loose balls. I stood near the doorway and let the first fantasy take shape: I imagined how that thick length would feel the moment it pushed inside me, the slow stretch of every inch as he eased forward with careful, almost apologetic thrusts, his thin frame hovering above mine while he watched my face for any sign of My Gay Majesty's discomfort.
In my mind they slapped gently against me with each deep stroke, warm and full, brushing my skin in a steady rhythm while he stayed shy and focused. I thought about how they would tighten when he got close, still hanging freely at first, and how the simple heat and softness of them would make every movement feel more intimate than anything polished or practiced.
Then I saw the way his awkward body would move above me. I imagined his pale shoulders slightly hunched, elbows braced a little uncertainly on the mattress, glasses still perched on his nose as he tried to find a steady pace. Every thrust would carry that same endearing hesitation, the slight falter when pleasure surprised him, the quiet readjustment of his hips as he learned exactly how I liked it.
I thought about his voice and the small sounds he would make. In the fantasy he stayed mostly quiet at first, only soft breaths and the occasional shaky exhale against my neck. When the feeling finally overtook his reserve I imagined a low, surprised groan escaping him, still half-muffled as if he could not quite believe he was allowed to make noise, the sound turning rougher only when he buried himself deepest.
Last of all I pictured the look in his eyes. I saw him glancing down at me through those lenses, cheeks flushed, expression caught between intense concentration and lingering shyness even while he was fully inside me. That mix of earnest effort and quiet wonder would stay on his face the entire time, and the thought of it alone made me want to cross the room and join him under the covers without another word.
And then I was naked on top of him, tearing away those briefs.
***
Nerds have sex gratefully. They undress you with reverence, they kiss you gently, they make sure you feel great and that you will remember this as one of the best dates of your life. That was how it started with Quinn, my nerdy guitar-singing, hotdog-roasting acoustic engineer.
When he lost his briefs, I found that he had a lovely thick fat stub of a dick, angrily red, roughly cut, sticking directly forward over a set of low-hanging red smallish balls. His body was thin, nerdily white with arms tanned up to the elbow.
Ah, it was the same guy who walked toward me smiling broadly just twelve hours ago. The same man who asked me if I was up for a day of adventures and who was so proud to introduce me to the ballet star of my childhood. He beamed then, proud as proud could be.
Now he was naked, his red dick sticking forward rock hard, hovering over me. He kissed me deeply, and his trembling hand slid down my stomach, between my thighs. This nerd had known very well where he was headed. I moaned like a horny cow when he touched me there. He worked my asshole slowly, feeling me tremble, listening to my breath catch. I wrapped my hand around his hot cock and squeezed; and he groaned into my shoulder. I smiled. He kissed me hard for that.
Ah, it was the same guy who put his arm casually around the back of my chair in the theater box, and the spring rain smell of his deodorant reached my nostrils and made me tremble for the first time; the same guy who applauded wildly pretending so well that he was a seasoned ballet fan not someone who saw maybe the second or third performance of his life.
Now he produced a condom (you knew it, you knew it), rolled it on and pushed inside me, slowly, ever so slowly, watching my face. My lips parted, my eyes hazed. He started slow, deep strokes, feeling me tighten around him. I pulled him closer and wrapped my legs around his hips. He went harder. The headboard knocked against the wall. He pulled my hair gently, tilting my head back, kissing my throat. I moaned his name and that pushed him closer. He gritted his teeth, and the first angry scowl crossed his face.
It was him, him who smiled at me tasting a real gold leaf, and finding it, mmmm, interesting. Him, who called a waiter over with a resounding “Sir?” when I needed more coffee. Him, who explained what the canapes were made of.
Now something shifted. He got more wound up with every thrust, his rhythm turning sharper, almost angry. His face tightened like he was fighting something inside himself. He moaned as if he were crying—raw, broken sounds that spilled out of him while he drove into me harder. When I moaned in my turn, he grunted unhappily in response and his hands suddenly came down and slapped my butt cheeks, the sharp sting landing again and again, making me gasp and arch. Strangely, I loved it. The force, the edge in him, the way he seemed to lose control. Part of me thought he was punishing himself for that rather ugly, rather short red cut dick and those small balls of his, and his gayness, and this one-night stand… But none of that mattered. He was perfectly hard and reached every spot inside me, hitting places that made me start seeing rainbows, pleasure sparking bright behind my eyes with every deep stroke.
It was him, yes, definitely him who wanted so bad to give me an acoustics lecture on the city promenade but instead let me photograph the beautiful reflections and lights, and smiled that guilty smile when I didn’t seem to enjoy the technicalities he so loved. I was sure that he was thinking at that moment “I’ll get you, man,” planning the evening picnic.
Now as he pushed angrily into me, grunting and pressing his hand onto my mouth when I couldn’t help it and made sounds of my own. Soon the tickling warmth under my balls started blooming into a red hot flower that went down, down, down and touched on his dick, moving like a well-oiled piston through my sovereign territory. I felt myself clench around him, my whole body shook, I screamed whether he, my love song singer in the dark who pretended like he didn’t know I fell in love, wanted it or not.
He grunted, he shook inside me, I heard for the first time the loud slaps of his balls, and I came hard, digging my nails into his back. Three more rapid thrusts and he buried himself deep, groaning loud as he came inside his condom. His whole body tensed and released, the angry pleasure rolling through him in waves. He stayed inside me afterward, catching his breath, his forehead pressed against mine.
Ah, Martin, was it the same guy who told you a touching story about a Catholic priest who taught him about stars when he was a teen? Was it he who found the loneliest spot on the planet for the most innocent picnic with love songs and roasted hotdogs?
We didn’t move for a while. Then he rolled onto his back, took off the condom with a respectable pool of pearly cum inside, and slapped his bare feet into the bathroom to throw it away and wash his hands. When he was coming back I saw his thin semi dangling funnily from his thick pubic bush and laughed to myself, later angrily telling myself to stop.
For Martin, how could you laugh at the man who sang gentle love songs to you under the colorful Milky Way in the dark with no one around us? Didn’t he make you scream in pleasure, this boy of a man, a nerdy thin little fellow who knew how to control sounds?
I curled against his chest and stared at the ceiling, heart still pounding. I kissed his shoulder and said something about this being the best date I’d ever had. He laughed, told me I was ridiculous. I smiled against his skin.
Eventually we fell out of bed and staggered to the shower, still half-dazed. The hot water hit us and he leaned in, biting my nipples—sharp, deliberate nips that sent fresh sparks through me and made me see rainbows again. I reached down and played with his cock, now just a tiny button nestled in a thick pubic bush. I wondered how this little dick had made me feel so great, how something so unimpressive to look at had reached every spot inside me and left me shaking and seeing rainbows.
“I hope this doesn’t make it into your diary or something,” Quinn said with a small smile as we were wiping after the shower with one huge towel like a good old family. “It wouldn’t make for great reading,” and he showed guiltily at his small frame.
“It would if I wrote it,” I responded cheekily. “But no, that’s strictly between us.”
The way he laughed showed me that he didn’t quite believe me, the Four Eyes nerd, Ph.D. student, avid swimmer, guitar player, love song singer, safe driver, the guy with a guilty smile no matter how good he had just made you feel.
***
At 11 p.m., one hour after the hotel's guest curfew, Quinn and I tiptoed through the lobby, trying not to attract the attention of the attendant at the front desk. We waited for the right moment, slipped past while he was looking the other way, and made it to the entrance without a word. Once outside, we both started laughing quietly at the absurdity of our little escape.
We stood beside Quinn's light-blue Subaru for a moment, reluctant to end the evening. I looked at him and told him what I had been thinking for most of the day. His work was remarkable. What he had created with his acoustic response stages was genuinely extraordinary, and I had no doubt that people would be talking about his achievements for a long time. But that wasn't what I thought I’d remember the most.
“Outside all those glorious achievements in acoustics,” I told him, “you're just a wonderful guy.”
Quinn looked at me with his shy, guilty smile, and for once he seemed to have no clever professional answer. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “That means a lot to me.”
We hugged, then gave each other a couple of gentle kisses before finally letting go. Quinn climbed into his car, lowered the window and gave me one last smile.
“Good night, Martin.”
“Good night, Quinn. Listen, man…”
“Yeah, what?”
“Don’t be angry at yourself or people you love. You’re good, you’re enough as the Japanese say. Don’t punish yourself, don’t view it as work to be done quickly. You are gay, you are fine, and you are enough.”
“I am enough,” he repeated.
I watched the little light-blue Subaru pull away and disappear into the night. Then I turned back toward the hotel, carrying with me far more than just a memory of cumming on a short angry cut dick; it was a day full of memories about an extraordinary guy.
***
Bad writers often invent some happy ends, like we met again, we repeated it, he was no longer angry, he stayed for a week, we might get married… Nope. None of that. I never again saw Quinn, I never called or texted him, I never saw any of his ads on LEX. I don’t know if he ever overcame his fear or fury, whether he found a good guy, what happened to him.
There's one thing I am sure of--it is that you, my readers, will remember Quinn. Not just as an erotic story but as someone who made a full day very special for one very cynical old men's collector pretending to be a respectable professor. There, I said it. That's what you are, Martin.
To get in touch with the author, send them an email.
