Free Wrestling This by Dan Sexton Page B

you two,” he yelled.
    Thin Dylan weaseled his way between us. “Jesus, guys. Lighten up.”
    Anyone who teetered between the middle and heavyweight divisions—as Eric had—I knew would be tough to win. I wanted to pulverize him.
    What I didn’t know, back then, is that I wanted to be in him, and him in me.
    I thought Eric as someone to beat. Not beat off , like Dylan, and his brilliant idea, eventually had us do.
    I worked out harder to be better, to be like Eric.
    Months passed with us barely communicating.
    “Bring it on,” I told myself. My competitive nature most likely came from my dad. Even as a kid, no matter how much I tried, no matter how much I bench-pressed or how fast I covered the fifty-yard dash, it never satisfied my desire to improve.
    Ultimately, my compulsion exhausted me—as it always did.
    I’m my own worst enemy.
    “Body-dysmorphic disorder.” That’s what my shrink, calls it. He tries to convince me that the love handles I see around my waist are just a form of anxiety—that there are none. And I’ll bite back with some sarcastic quip about not wanting to wind up like him when I get old, yet the prick won’t even flinch.
    This whole psychologist thing is my coach’s fault. Last year, when he found the weight-loss pills in my locker, I told him my striving for perfection kept me leaner, stronger, and firmer for the team. My striving would help get us to the state champions. “They’re just supplements,” I told him. I could choke down a fistful of vitamins faster than a dieter scoffing burgers on a cheat day.
    The fuck didn’t buy it, so what does he do but go and refer me to the friggin’ school psychiatrist.
    I tried to tell Coach and the doc that I just didn’t want a lard ass from a weekend of eating ice cream and drinking beer—like my old man with a butt as big as the tail section of his goddamn Porsche.
    The coach said he’d cut me from the team if I didn’t follow through with counseling.
    It’s nothing really. I just like to keep fit. The rational part of me knows the pinch around my waist, when I hold it to the calipers, measures lean, but in the mirror, I see someone different.
    I’m not crazy or anything. I’m just real. I just want to look good, like millions of other Americans. And, from what I’m told, I guess I do. It’s just hard to let myself be me sometimes.
    Not to be conceited, but the girls hadn’t seemed to mind my looks. Margie, the Phi Beta Kappa president I’d dated, called me her hottie. She had a rack that, as Dylan said, “Could make you cream your jeans.” At least some guys. Not me.
    If I worked at it hard enough, I could get turned on by her. But I just got so tired of trying.
    Eric, and even Dylan, made me want to change all that.

Chapter Two
    M y move from hate to lust and ultimately to love toward Eric advanced a notch one afternoon following a tough wrestling practice. Working out made me horny as hell, and doing so next to Eric wound me up bad. Fighting him—both physically and emotionally—for two months grew weary.
    After showering and closing the gym, Margie—my sorority-president girlfriend, at the time—picked me up in her Mustang. We were going to meet a group of friends at Roddy’s, a bar and grill, over on Gaines Street for some cheap eats and a couple of beers—aided by a flash of our fake IDs, thanks to Dylan.
    But, before we got off campus, the pent-up sex in me needed release.
    “Margie, wanna fool around?”
    A few minutes later, she parked under an oak tree on the west side of campus, our usual spot, and hopped in the backseat. Often, the car suited us fine. Her dorm had rules, and Dylan would just get in the way—or want to join in, knowing him, if we messed around at my place.
    This time when Marg kissed me, and our tongues flickered against each other, I couldn’t help but stiffen. With her, it usually took awhile but maybe because I’d just spent an hour and a half trying not to throw a bone—rolling all