“I’m not really gay,” the naked man sitting in front of the computer says to himself.

The naked man sitting in front of the computer is a financial advisor at one of the biggest firms in town. He was once thin and handsome in a boyish way. Today, his face is still youthful looking, but his dark hair has a few streaks of gray, and his bloated, corporate appearance strongly suggests he enjoys eating steak dinners and drinking scotch and waters after playing 18 holes at the club.

“It’s better than cheating,” the naked man sitting in front of the computer says to himself.

The naked man sitting in front of the computer has two teenage kids from his first marriage to a lovely, beautiful, charismatic English professor. That marriage ended after almost nineteen years because she was his intellectual equal, and he couldn’t handle it any longer.

“This is like going to Target for something you need,” the naked man sitting in front of the computer says to himself.

For the last three years, he’s been married to an aging, flighty blonde events coordinator with two teenage kids of her own from a previous marriage and a history of psychological and emotional instability, self-indulgence, and using people to better her own position in life. When you’re a wealthy and powerful male who’s lonely, none of that matters too much.

“This is just a healthy fantasy,” the naked man sitting in front of the computer says to himself.

When the naked man sitting in front of the computer and the events coordinator reconnected on Facebook a few years ago, both were separated from their spouses. It was only natural then they would start having dinner and sex regularly. They got married shortly after their divorces had become final. That’s when the sex suddenly stopped being good, and the naked man sitting in front of the computer started looking at Internet porn regularly.

“The brain works in mysterious ways,” the naked man sitting in front of the computer says to himself.

At first, he was just into basic heterosexual porn he could watch on free sites without having to give out his credit card number. The videos and pictures he viewed helped him to get off by himself, and whenever the events coordinator wanted sex, he would just think of some arousing images, and it was enough to get the job done for both of them.

“I don’t even think I’m bisexual,” the naked man sitting in front of the computer says to himself.

Over time, he had become desensitized to regular assembly-line heterosexual porn, so he started exploring various categories on pay sites—e.g., Asians, lipstick lesbians, group sex—and that worked sometimes, but not always, which is why he bought the events coordinator a vibrating dildo for her forty-fifth birthday.

“This is harmless,” the naked man sitting in front of the computer says to himself.

The events coordinator didn’t complain much about their lack of sex after getting that vibrating dildo, but today on the phone she made it clear that she expected sex with him tonight, not the toy, and now he was just doing what he had to do to get in the mood, which was look at gay porn.

“That’s the one,” the naked man sitting in front of the computer says to himself before selecting the gay video he’s chosen to watch so he can be sexually aroused enough to have sex with his wife.

The naked man sitting in front of the computer never had any desire to look at gay porn, but he had become so bored with the regular stuff, he decided to give it a try one day. He soon discovered that a man’s penis often has a mind of its own. He’s been hooked on gay porn ever since.

“I could do this all night,” the naked man sitting in front of the computer says to himself.

Within a few minutes, he becomes so mesmerized with what he’s watching, he fails to hear his wife come up the stairs an open the door to their bedroom.

“I’m doing this for us, honey,” says the naked man sitting in front of the computer, as his wife looks at him in terrified amazement.

And in his mind, that was the cold, hard truth.

*

Chris Stucchio is a freelance writer and editor living in Buffalo, New York. His flash fiction has been published in a variety of magazines. In addition, his one-act play “I Want Candy” was staged at Rust Belt Theatre in Buffalo in January 2007. He can be reached by email at fleawarhol@aol.com.