THE SHOW-ER
While driving from Denver to Telluride we stopped off at Orvis Hot Springs in Ridgway. Ridgway was a certified dark sky community and though it wasn’t quite dark, you could already see the Milky Way starting to bruise the blackening sky. I parked the truck and the ’62 Airstream along the side of the dirt drive. There was nothing around out there, and the jagged Rockies in the distance resembled giant arrowheads shot through the middle of the Earth.
We paid the modest fee to enter the springs, took the robes we were given, and went to the changing rooms to put on our suits. The ten spring-fed pools ranged in temperature from cold plunge to lobster pot. The décor was rustic Southwest, clothing was optional, and while the old cliché held that most who took the option were those you wish hadn’t, there was one notable exception.
The Show-er walked over to where we were, by the largest and most populated pool. He briefly surveyed the scene then untied his robe and let it fall to the ground. For a moment he stood, still like a statue, before taking his time entering the water. He was white, mid 30s maybe, and of average height. He was not particularly good-looking. Not overweight, not fit. A face that was not memorable. What he had, though, was a trunk-like flaccid penis that hung majestically between his testicles. As he walked, it swung slowly, like the pendulum of an antique clock.
I felt my cheeks reddening and was surprised when, glancing at Alice, I noticed her face had contorted into a sly and private smile that I could not recall ever seeing.
By that point The Show-er was submerged, his endowment hidden under water, but there was no denying the lasting impact it had made.
I was a grower not a show-er, and while proud of my anatomy when aroused, its length, and especially its girth, I was equally embarrassed by its flaccid appearance, which, as the years passed and my midriff widened, bordered on the comical and looked not unlike the appendage of a child attached to the body of a middle-aged man of above-average height.
That night, under infinite stars, Alice and I made love with the eagerness of teenagers in the ‘62 Airstream. I imagined entering her not with my own, but with the Show-er’s endowment. My shorn shaft gliding with the slipperiness of an eel. I wondered if her thoughts were similar. That it was not my swollen member between her legs, but his. Not my hair she ran her fingers through, but his. Not my choked snarl that concluded matters, but his.
As her deep breaths turned to soft snores, I thought still of the Show-er. Did he understand his mystic power? Did it bring him an abundance of sexual partners, or did he live with some strange shame—unable to reap the rewards of his gift because it remained mostly hidden? The wrapping paper, his appearance, as it were, incapable of reflecting the treasure it contained. Perhaps he sought out the clothing-optional hot springs specifically in search of these moments when he enters other lives and other bedrooms. Could this transcendence, be it subatomic or otherwise diffused through the ether, be slowly strengthening him? Adding more pungency to his pheromones. Until the day when what is hidden no longer needs to be seen to be understood?
In the morning, I awoke to Alice stretching awake in the soft dawn light filtering through the curtains. That wry and private smile was there again, but this time it could have only been for me. She’d made no comment or mention of The Show-er the night before, only that smile, and why would she? As I drove toward Telluride it occurred to me how little I really cared. I stole glances of Alice in the passenger seat. My life’s love. In the morning brightness the light hairs on her arms appeared to shimmer. The towering Rockies mirrored off the lenses of her glasses. As the road snaked ever higher, we drove through and then above the clouds. Heaven can wait, I thought. How perfect I have it here.