Warning: contains language related to fatphobia and contains disturbing imagery. Use discretion while reading.
It was a Friday night, which meant Marshal was ready to have fun. The club was spacious, and the strobing pulse of lights, coupled with a heavy presence of neon rainbows, pierced the canopy of darkness over the dancefloor, preventing a visual safety hazard. Marshal could feel a light sweat cool his chest as he swayed, and he moved his feet to the bass of the beat. It was fun to dance against handsome men; the taller and more muscular, the better. He loved teasing them with his hips, grinding his backside against their groin. The really handsome ones he would turn toward and kiss, right in the middle of the dance floor. He kept thinking how attractive his current dance partner was, but he was disappointed in the handsome stranger’s lack of skill in kissing, and he wanted to dance against a few more boys before the night was over, so he decided to abandon him.
“I’m going to get a drink,” he told the jock, and he pushed his way through a crowd of writhing, sweaty bodies. When he made his way to the bar, he leaned against the counter, catching his breath. The bartender was busy fixing drinks for members of the crowd, so Marshal knew it would be a while before the bartender got around to him. He was content to wait patiently. He stuck his posterior out and arched his back; he knew he likely wouldn’t be buying this round if he could attract someone’s attention. He lived for the hunt. Nothing made him feel sexier than the admiration he received from boys in the bars. As much as he loved dancing, it was the attention he gained that got him through the club doors every weekend.
“Could I buy you a drink?” a voice from behind him asked, and it was music to Marshal’s ears. Marshal could tell from his intonation that the gentleman was definitely interested in him, which caused an involuntary smile to spread across his chin; however, the smile faded the moment he turned toward his suitor.
“No thanks,” Marshal hissed as coldly as he possibly could. He was utterly disgusted. The man standing behind him was fat. He cringed at the sight of the man’s belly and the way his sides hung over his belt. Marshal considered himself a rather tolerant being. He had no racial hang ups and he always voted democrat in every election, but there was just something about body fat that was unforgivable. He himself made it a point to exercise every day and restrict his calories. He took pictures frequently to check his physique. And here was an overweight creature standing behind him with the audacity to hit on him. Was it not obvious he was out of this ogre’s league?
He made his irritation as obvious as possible, scoffing with an up-and-down leer as he walked off. The suitor got the message, as his head hung low in the shame of rejection. Marshal was pleased to look over his shoulder and know the lesson landed. Hopefully the loser would never try something like that with someone like Marshal ever again. He felt proud that he might have saved another guy the embarrassment of turning down those pudgy cheeks and hamhock shoulders. As annoyed as Marshal was that a fat man would ever consider himself worthy of him, he was even more annoyed that he was forced from the bar without having grabbed a drink. At least the hot jock would be there on the dance floor to grind against, he mumbled to himself.
Marshal fixated on fat gays as he pushed his way back to the center. As he passed the dancing bodies, he noted how proportional each one was. He thought how he and the rest of the dancing crowd belonged in this space. He thought about bear bars and wondered why the fat suitor would ever venture outside of those spaces. He also wondered why someone would ever be okay with accepting a life in a fat body. He then thought about himself and wondered what attracted fat boys to him. It was always annoying when fat gays hit him up on the apps. He would see their pictures and block them immediately. He wished there was an app that wouldn’t allow overweight people into the dating pool. He wished fat gays didn’t exist. When he reached the center of the floor, he was annoyed to see the jock had already pressed himself against another boy. He told himself that it didn’t matter; he could find another boy in a minute, and he did.
Through the alternating strokes of darkness and strobes of light, he made eye contact with someone he deemed a ‘ten:' a bonafide hot body that could easily be featured in a porn scene. His cheeks perked up when he realized that the ten was just as much into him. Their stride toward each other was magnetic and seemed without obstacle, as if the sea of bodies in the center of the dance floor parted for fate.
“Woof, you’re sexy,” the handsome man greeted him. “I’m Isaac.”
“Marshal,” he answered directly into the man’s ear. The man pulled Marshal toward his body by the hips. They danced and kissed for what felt like an eternity, and Marshal’s feet seemed to fly from the floor when Isaac asked him to accompany him to the bathroom, where it was widely known in the club that people could go to hookup. Marshal couldn't wait to see the man’s body sans clothing. Almost instantly, Marshal and Isaac reached the restroom, and as their shoes clicked against the bathroom tiles and their eyes adjusted from the dark, grittiness of the dancefloor to the bright, well-lit restroom, the boys turned to one another to figure out their next move.
Marshal’s heart raced with excitement as he lunged forward to land another kiss against Isaac’s lips, but he came to a halt when he noticed the horrified expression on Isaac’s face. Marshal didn’t understand why Isaac looked at him as if his face were melting, as if some winged creature was clawing its way out of his eyes. He glanced at the mirror. He wondered whether he had a nosebleed or, god forbid, a booger hanging above his lip, but all was as it was. He could see his dimpled chin framing his pouty lips, and right above his smile stood a pair of piercing blue eyes and windswept dirty blonde hair. He looked great. He turned back to Isaac, whose glare had grown with more disgust.
“Are you okay?” Marshal asked innocently. He wondered whether his breath smelled terrible, but they had been kissing the last twenty minutes, so it couldn’t have been that.
“You’re ugly,” Isaac told him with chilling conviction. Isaac dismissed himself from the restroom without as much as another look at Marshal.
Marshal was shocked, which is understating it. Beauty was Marshal’s life. His thousands of social media followers and adult entertainment subscribers had only adorned him with praise for his handsome face and his perfect physique. Countless nights he had gone to bed hungry. Countless hours he spent in a tanning bed. Countless days he pushed his body to the brink of exhaustion. It wasn’t possible. The word ‘ugly’ took several moments to register in Marshal’s mind. He looked back at the mirror, only to find himself exactly as handsome as he had been the day before, and the day before that.
Marshal left the club in low spirits, fixating on the word ‘ugly.’ Isaac must have been high. That’s it, he told himself. He messaged his regular hookup, Joel, just to get a second opinion.
Hey, I look alright, don’t I?- M
Absolutely. What’re you doing? Wanna come over?- J
Marshal clung to that ‘absolutely.’ Joel himself was handsome with nearly as many social media followers as Marshal, so he took comfort in Joel’s vote of confidence.
Still the word ‘ugly’ hooked its claws into Marshal’s mind. As he walked home, he thought about his dimple, which most guys found sexy. He reminded himself how much he resembled superheroes with his chin the way it was. Were his eyes too blue, his skin too fair? No way he was ugly, he coached himself. He accepted that Isaac must have been delusional.
He reached his apartment. The first thing he did was do a double take in his mirror. He was perfectly trim with thick muscles in the right places. What could have possibly turned Isaac off? He spread out on his bed and opened his phone, checking his latest selfies for the comment sections. In every forum, there were dozens of boys admiring him. What right did Isaac have? He thought of that entire night, how the jock before Isaac nearly drooled all over him, how that fat man tried to hit on him, and his lips curled into a grin with a sinister thought. He thought about only being a fly on the wall while the fat man tried to hit on Isaac, and shuddered at the thought of Isaac’s reply. If he thought Marshal was ugly, he could only fear what Isaac would make of that blob.
Marshal couldn’t get comfortable on his bed. He ignored Joel’s latest round of texts asking for a hookup. He noted it had been a few days since he posted to his social media, and relished thinking about the kinds of responses he would receive if he were to post a selfie from his balcony with the city’s skyline in the background.
He changed his outfit to a low plunging v-neck t-shirt, set his ring light to point outside, and leaned against the rails on the balcony.
Just as he framed himself perfectly against the skyline, a bird swooped in against his hand, startling him, knocking him over the balcony, which sent him flailing to the concrete.
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