The Day of the Meat - Jeph Porter

Have you ever been caught masturbating? Me either, but I always worry about it. I'm always so afraid that someone is going to see me doing this act that is terrible and horrible. Why? I know everyone else is doing it, no matter what they say. Even the ladies are doing it and if they really aren't doing it, then I wouldn't want to be locked in a room with them on a bad day.
Everyone masturbates and everyone is ashamed of it. Is masturbation some kind of left over animal act that we can't seem to shake from our higher selves? I don't know, perhaps. But the point is that I bet if you asked ten people nine of them would say that one of their biggest fears is getting caught masturbating. And the one person who wouldn't mind is probably into some weird stuff.
And I'm not sure what part of masturbating is shameful? Is it the actual act or is it the material one requires to achieve, the desired result. Whether it be a magazine, the depths of the Internet or some kind of mechanical device coupled with memories pulled fresh from the spank bank, the material is both specific and generic but obviously a tool for whacking the weeds. Do I mind if my roommate sees me grasping my erect member and stroking it like its the last thing I'll ever do? Or do I worry more that he'll see some painted whore devouring another mans pleasure rod through a hole in a gas station bathroom? Am I displacing my consciousness? Is the act of visualization so intense that I feel like my roommate has caught me getting my meat tube yanked in the dirty grimy, disease filled cesspool of a bathroom?
Of course not. Right? Right? Or is this another one of those lingering animal traits floating in our brains that somehow tricks us just for a second into believing that the dirty vile act we are watching is some how our responsibility, somehow our fault? Or is it the fact that things we like to see in our smut are things normal society wouldn't agree with? But doesn't everyone masturbate? Doesn't everyone want to see that slut get cum all over her glasses? Her glasses! White hot male body fluid splashed on a nice pair of horn rimmed Walgreen's glasses. So arbitrary yet so so hot.
And this is what I was thinking about as I pulled my hand from hot mess of my crotch and stopped the video playing on my laptop. The pale redheaded girl stopped bouncing, her mouth stopped in a permanent "O". Two seconds ago she had been the answer to all my problems, the missing puzzle piece to the -- who the hell is she? How much sex do you think she has? Do you think she cries when she's alone?
Well there goes any chance at a second go around.
I turned off my laptop and dropped it to the floor, cleaned my mess and flipped the light off. Another night, another day over, capped off with an empty shot in the dark.

I woke up late, forgot to set my alarm, and I thought, fuck it I'm already late might as well take another few minutes and really get that sleep I need. Just five more minutes of sleep and I'll feel so much better about it. I'll get that project done at work my boss has been asking about and he won't care if I was late. I'll go to bed early tonight so I can get in to work early tomorrow. I roll over, away from the window and away from the sunlight reminding me what time it is and grasp a hold of the strange woman who smells like beer and cigarettes lying next to me in bed.
Her skin is naked and pale. There are zits on her back which I try and remember if I've seen before. I don't remember her having zits on her back. I do remember her red hair though and when I sit up to look at her closer I recognize that heavy blue eye shadow and that red lipstick painted on her face like a billboard.
My heart jumps into my throat and I jump out of bed. The girl stirs and turns to look at me. She yawns, smiles and stretches her arms revealing her naked chest and she lets it dangled out from under the covers with no inhibition.
"Who the..." I stuttered, "What the..." I stuttered again.
"What the fuck!" I manage to complete.
She smiles coils her arms into her chest and rolls to face me, nestling her head on the pillow. I can't speak, I've said the only thing my brain can mange to make sense of so I just stare, taking it in, processing it, grasping for something.
"Come back to bed" She says through parted lips, the glint of her tongue ring just visible, and she pats the now empty spot where I was laying.
"Who are you?" I say, laughing as if this is my fault, as if I've forgotten something. Did I go out last night? Did someone come over? Did I do this in my sleep? And as I run through the events of the latter evening the only thing that I can connect to this red headed, potch faced, pale, naked woman lying in my bed is the phrase: Small Titted Redhead Loves to Suck Cock and Fuck
Small Titted Redhead Loves to Suck Cock and Fuck? What the fuck does that mean!? Small Titted Redhead Loves to Suck....Oh Jesus. It hits me like a ton of bricks because that's the only way something like this can hit you. This girl, she can't be older than twenty, is the very same vile thing I was pleasuring myself to before bed. Except here she is, flesh and blood, not images and progress bars.
"You're..." I can't say it.
"What?" She asks, her eyes closed.
"I have to go to work" I say, leaving the room.

The bus is crowded, school has started and all the students are packed onto the public bus. I thought they had their own buses. And to make matters worse, my redheaded friend has decided to come to work with me. I couldn't stop her, she just got dressed, in the same lime green barely one piece she was wearing in the video. I tried to lose her, lock my door behind her, jump on the bus before she could, but she was quick and on top of it. I noticed I wasn't the only one walking around with a scantily dressed whore by my side. Mr. Jurkowski, the produce store owner stood with a six foot tall black woman. She had on a leopard print dress and tall silver high heels with laces wrapping up to her knees. Mr. Jurkowski was misting his fruit and she was filing her nails. Mr. Jurkowski didn't seem to mind her, but he also didn't seem to enjoy her.
Had this woman always worked for Mr. Jurkowski or was he suffering the same plight as I? On the bus a number of high school boys sat sheepishly with their supermodels and a number of them sat next to other girls, wearing the same uniform as them, which I wouldn't have thought anything of save the fact that at the other end of the bus I saw girls that looked just like them heads to the ground with red cheeks.
I ran across the parking lot to my building, my redheaded stalker high heels clacking on the pavement in pursuit, and saw several of the other people who worked in the building arriving late, some walking quickly like me with a person in tow and others alone. I later figured these people must have figured how to get rid of their follower or just simple hadn't masturbated that evening prior.
I opened the fridge in the lunch room and stuffed my lunch in the back. My redheaded better half was eying the vending machine and I wondered if she was hungry.
"Hungry?" I asked.
"MmmHmm," She cooed, "I'm hungry for you baby"
"Oh, well," I said, "I've got a meeting first thing here, so maybe after?" But she wasn't paying attention, she was opening the drawers and taking whatever real silverware was in there and stuffing it in her purse.
The meeting was awkward. I wasn't the only one with company but I could see my boss' nervous glances at us, as he tried to pretend their wasn't a large Mexican woman next to him walking in circles that shook her generous thighs threatening to tear the cut off jean skirt somehow attached to her over-ripened belly. No, it was business as usual.
"Where's Gregg?" He called in my general direction.
"I'm not sure, late?" I suggested.
"Late, there's no excuse to be late!" He boomed in what I'm sure was real sincerity.
Gregg was a guy who once got me a whole hard drive full of Japanese Anime porn for my birthday. He was one of those guys that you saw in the hall and really wanted to like because he was different than everyone else in the office, but you also didn't want to talk to for too long because he was different than everyone else in the office. Gregg was into some weird shit.
"I want someone on the phone with Gregg right now, we've got deadlines and he's not helping," my boss commanded to a young woman who sat next to what I'm sure was a member of the Backstreet Boys. She rose and pulling out her cell phone dived into the hall to make the call. Her companion boy followed quickly trying to hold the door for her which she in turn tried to force close behind him.
"Now," my boss said, " I don't want anyone to make excuses for why things aren't getting done." He batted away the playful fingers of his Chica and continued steely eyed forward. "This is still a place of business and it will always be that, no matter what!"
I shot my hand up.
"Yes, goddamn it, this isn't elementary school!"
"Sorry sir," I said clearing my throat, "But don't you think we should maybe - "
"No!" his voice echoing like a shotgun across the room. All eyes were on me, and I pulled the air into my throat with a gulp.
"I'm just saying maybe today isn't - "
"I said no, goddammit!" He stood, slammed his palm on the table. His Chica burst into a clap, "Today, we are a business, just like yesterday, and just like tomorrow! Today is no different!"
I leaned back in my chair and nodded. My redheaded friend pulled a pack of bubble gum from her purse and popped a piece in her mouth. Today was going to be a long day.

I ran into Helen, the woman with the boy band fixation, on the way out and she wouldn't meet me in the eye.
"How's Gregg?" I asked.
"He's fine!" She said, bolting for the conference room.
"He coming in?" I called after her. She turned, looked at me and darted her head down as her friend put his hands on her shoulders and began to massage them.
"No, he's spending the day with his mother" She said and pushed the man's hands off her, slipping into the conference room where our boss was trying desperately to fend off the advancing woman, now crawling over the table. I sighed, Gregg had the project logs for the latest campaign we both worked on and I needed them to finish the package. And I sighed again because I knew Gregg's mother had died a few years ago.

I couldn't work, sitting in my office was bothersome. My redheaded visitor didn't come onto me as much as others seem to but still having her in the room, smelling like cheap perfume and unabashedly planting her feet on my desk as she sat across from me exposing her shorn lady parts seemed to make me sad in a way.
"Do you have a name?" I asked her.
She nodded, "Starlett."
"Is that your real name?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"So should I just call you Starlett?"
She nodded again.
"Where're you from Starlett?"
She tossed her head back, letting out a sigh of frustration.
"Sorry," I said trying hard to think of another topic of conversation but I gave up when Starlett hiked up her skirt and began to masturbate.
There was a knock at the door and it was Tim. He held a cup of coffee and was alone.
"This yours?" He asked, nodding towards the moaning Starlett.
"It is" I said with a frown.
"You fuck her yet?" He asked.
"No!" I said shocked. "Why would I fuck her?"
"Well I mean," Tim shrugged his shoulders and nodded at the porn star masturbating on my desk.
He had a point, I had chosen her out of some sort of shallow desire for sexual gratification I might as well get it. But now that she was here, in the flesh, the pale, bumpy, zit marked flesh, it didn't seem right.
"You're a lucky bastard" Tim said, "I went out and got laid night"
"I'm lucky!" I said in protest.
"Yeah!" Tim said, "I bagged some forty year old cougar with stretch marks and called it a night. Now you got yourself a young porn star and I got nothing"
"I guess," I said trying to find the benefit.
"But how long is she going to be here?"
"She eat?"
"No"
"Then she's invincible"
"What?"
"People are talking about how you can't kill them. They throw them off buildings, shoot them, cut them and nothing."
"What the hell?"
"Crazy" Tim stepped a little further into the office to get a better view of Starlett as she began to climax. "You mind?"
I shrugged and gestured an open hand telling him to be my guest. And we both watched as Starlett let a violent explosion of fluid come out of her. It splashed onto my desk and Tim jumped back just missing the splash back.
"Jesus!"
"Yeah, she does that." I said with disdain.
"You lucky fucker" Tim said shaking is head and making for the door. "Hey did you see Kale?"
"No"
"Fucker came in with a fifteen year old girl"
"Sick"
"I know, I can't believe he came into work" Tim nodded at me, and smiled at Starlett before he left.

I pulled my lunch from the fridge and found a place at the table, Tripp was the only other person in the room, well, that and our friends. His was a plain looking girl, with blond hair and a loose fitting t-shirt on. She was probably in her late twenties early thirties and didn't look like the type one would normally get off to.
"Hey Tripp" I said sitting down.
He glared at me and took another bite of his sandwich.
"Whose your friend?" I asked.
"Fuck you" He said, tossing his sandwich down and making for the exit.

I was instructed to finish the project with or without Gregg and so in a vain attempt to make up for the missing project logs I threw together a few samples of our design templates as best I could remember and without Gregg's oppressive influence.
"To flashy," my boss barked as I stood in his office, "We're not MTV"
He tossed the specs down on his desk and I reached for them with one hand while the other fended off Starlett's advances.
"I just thought our color scheme could use an update," I suggested in defense.
"Look kid-" my boss began but was cut of by a loud thud coming from his closet. My eyes darted towards it but his stayed locked on me, silently telling me to ignore whatever it was in his closet trying to get out.
"I've been in this business a long time," he continued, "And in all those years we've never updated our color scheme because we've never had to."
"Okay," I said swallowing my frustration with an obvious distain. But my indignant conveyance was lost on my boss as Starlett rubbed her hands up and down my legs.
"I know you like all that flash shit," he went on un-phased, "but save it for your own stuff. I know what our customers like"
"Sure," I pushed Starlett to the ground.
"Have Gregg look at these tomorrow, see what he can do with them"
"Sounds good"
The closet door rattled violently, catching even Starlett's attention. My boss only winced a little before asking me quietly to leave.
A cue I took immediately and hastily.

I was really surprised how many people showed up to work. Randy in accounting showed up with a man dressed as a plumber and he managed to get all his work done regardless. I think I saw at least ten Paris Hiltons and one or two Pamela Anderson for some of the older guys. Tom the receptionist was with himself, the other one wearing a pair of leather chaps, only. I was surprised how little variety their was though. Mostly just blond, fake breasted porn stars for the men and strong confident male celebrities for the women. Maybe it was just my office, maybe at the colleges things were a lot worse. But it made me wonder what we all had to be ashamed of. Not only were we all masturbating for the most part, but we where all masturbating to the same stuff.
As I was walking across the lobby at the end of the day, looking at the various incarnations of people's secret desires I kind of chuckled. Here we were faced with exactly what we wanted on a purely sexual shallow level and we were ashamed of it. We were ashamed to have shallow thoughts, shallow desires. But these thoughts were probably some of the purest, most solid and confident ideas we had ever had in our lives and we were ducking our heads to the ground. I looked at Starlett as she walked next to me, her high heels clapping along the ground and I put my arm around her waist. I brought her in close and I looked at her. Her hollow eyes, tired like mine were. He pulsating nostrils breathing in the same air as mine. She was a pure thought, a pure desire and I wasn't ashamed of her. I pulled her red painted lips to mine and embraced her for all to see.
Her tongue forced its way into my mouth and it tasted like stale cigarettes. Her hand grabbed my crotch with force and yanked on it violently. I tried to pull away put she wouldn't let me. People began to stare as I danced with her in a struggle to get free. She tore my shirt off and ran her long sharp nails across my chest pushing me towards a bench. I landed hard and she straddled me, her nakedness easily exposing itself. I looked around and saw other men and woman with grins on their faces and saw as they grasped their partners and began to dance with them as well. The lobby floor of my building quickly turned into an orgy scene that would make Marquette De Sade blush. Whips, chains, the howls of animals and the cries of passion lifted across the city.

The next morning, the disheveled news anchor reported that all the visitors had disappeared. It was unexplained and unheard of. Paris Hilton was suing twenty million people over claims of an authentic sex tape. I sat in my living room, naked and let the sun crawl across the floor to meet me. I wasn't going into work today and I wasn't going into work tomorrow. I was going to take a few days off and figure out what I was doing with my life. I didn't want to work a job where I was ashamed of my thoughts. I didn't want to live a life where I was ashamed of my thoughts.
I grabbed a bottle of apple juice from the fridge and drank it straight from the bottle, dribbles of it running down my chest and getting lost in the mess of pubic hair at the crux of my legs. My roommate sat on his bed, naked also and staring at something in his mind. I walked out onto the back porch and stretched my arms. It was a new day, a beautiful day and anything was possible. I had a full day planned in my head of things I've been meaning to do. But before I did that, I was going to take a minute and masturbate.