Dirk Tales, The Book

THAT DARN MUSE

(The Episodic Misadventures of Doc and Dirk)

BY DAN DOC SKINNER

That Darn Muse, Dirk Tales

Smashwords Edition

* * * * *

Published By: Dan Skinner at Smashwords

Copyright © November 2016

All Rights Reserved

Edited and Formatted By: Ally Editorial Services

Cover Art By: Gri Clover

That Darn Muse, Dirk Tales is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any Resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright

Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, Dan Skinner.

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Table of Contents:

Dreaming Again

The Nutshell… and the Nut

Episode One: Dirk’s First Time

Episode Two: The Boy at the Gym

Random Dirkisms

Episode Three: A-MUSE-ing

Episode Four: Daddy and Rent Boy Dirk

More Random Dirkisms

Episode Five: Sex Dolls and Bad Dates

Episode Six: Dirk’s Quirks

Even More Random Dirkisms

Episode Seven: Make it Naked

Coming Soon

Also by Dan Doc Skinner

Connect with Dan

Dreaming Again

There’s something we possess in our teens and twenties that gradually disappears with time. The ability to look into the unknown ahead of us and imagine that all kinds of things are possible. As we become older and take on responsibilities and move forward into the mundane things of reality, we lose bits and pieces of those dreams. The castle or mansion becomes and apartment or condo, the champion steed a cat that curls at our feet or a dog that begs to be walked. Our Prince Charming turns out to be a succession of poor choices and the happily ever becomes sitting alone with popcorn and Netflix. That’s life and, whether we like it or not, we have to settle for the hand we’re dealt. The fire that burns so wildly in our youth becomes a flickering ember.

I’d reached that point about four years ago. My life had gone through another upheaval; everything changed again and I was once more cast back into the world, more jaded, drained of enthusiasm, and no longer looking forward to what might be as much as looking behind me at what could have been.

I’m a determined cuss, though. I decided that I no longer needed anyone in my life. That this change was my chance to own my happiness for the first time, to take care of me, do the things that mattered to only one person – myself. I wasn’t giving up, but I also wasn’t expecting a fairy tale ending anymore. I was alone. I intended to stay that way. Emotionally, it was the safest bet.

I had my photography and my writing to keep me busy. It didn’t matter if I ate dinner alone, drank my morning coffee naked without brushing my hair or seeing anyone off to work. The difference between the ideals of youth and the realities of middle age is... we learn to settle.

The idea of becoming a mentor to a nineteen-year-old apprentice had never, in the course of my life, crossed my mind. That’s tantamount to being a teacher and, being chronically ADHD, I’ve never had the patience. Over time, I’d developed an immunity to teenagers. I ignored them. They were loud, obnoxious, impatient. To be honest, they made me jealous because they could still look at tomorrow as the future and still dream of castles and princes.

My apprentice, Dirk forced himself on me. By that, I mean he was insistent to work with me as a photographer in order to speed his learning process. I agreed for two reasons. I had absolutely nothing going on in my life, and he intrigued me as someone I’d like to photograph. He was smart to the point of being wily, a tenacious student, and oblivious to the fact that without trying, he’d insinuated himself into almost every facet of my life. I think that’s how most friendships begin. There’s never one spectacular ah-ha moment when you realize someone is your friend. It happens over time, bit by bit, day by day, conversation by conversation, and then lo and behold, you discover that when they aren’t there something doesn’t feel quite right. They become someone important to have around. Dirk had become that. My friend.

He did something else that was extraordinary, though. Dirk had incorporated himself so much into my world that every project I worked on, whether photography or writing, he felt the need to contribute. Before I knew it... he was suggesting things I should have thought of myself, or proposing alternatives that made my thinking go in a completely different direction. He was, in fact, inspiring me. His ideas were igniting new sparks in my imagination. And suddenly I was creating as I’d never done before. That was when I realized our friendship and his apprenticeship had graduated into something else... he’d become my muse. A living, breathing, never-ending pest that prodded me forward where I normally procrastinated.

Dirk is like a tugboat. I have no other way to describe him. He wasn’t going to let this older ship dry dock itself and sit idle. He dragged me back onto the ocean of life. He made me see there were more waves to ride, more ports to see, and endless adventures for all of us – no matter our ages. But more than that, he helped me to look forward and see a future again. Life doesn’t just stop because we grow older or things change. Change is what dreams are made of... and I was dreaming again, and looking forward to the next wave. Wherever it may take me.

The Nutshell… and the Nut

He’s nineteen years old, taller than me by four inches and less heavy by about fifteen pounds – even though I’m an avid runner. I figure it’s my middle-age curse. It takes a lot more effort to be that lean. His hair is longish, rust-colored and will fall down into a classic set of bangs when the slightest breeze blows. He’ll absently brush this back a half dozen times in the course of a conversation. Determining his eye color is impossible. They seem to change with whatever he’s wearing but if I had to guess, I’d say closer to brown, maybe hazel. He’s hardcore ADHD and moves as quickly as he talks. I’ve often compared our discussions to watching hummingbirds’ wings. His leg provides a constant drumbeat to a conversation beneath the table.

This is Dirk. I call him my muse.

He and I have come a long way to eventually become photographer/teacher and apprentice/muse, but I still remember distinctly the day I first saw him. It was winter. I was in a new gym right after I moved back to the city; I was lying on a mat facing a row of treadmills, doing my abs when he walked in with two of his buddies. They were all college-aged. He was hard to miss. His buddies were in workout clothes and he was in a pair of the baggiest sweats I’d ever seen – two sizes too big for him but cinched tightly at the waist, a sweatshirt covered by a loose yellow jacket. He had a stocking cap barely pulled over the crown of his head and it had a peak as high as Mount Everest. He had a backpack on as if he’d just come from school and he didn’t bother to take it off as he climbed aboard the treadmill nearest me, plugged some ear buds in and began walking. He had a loose walk – that kind of gait that most guys get after a sudden growth spurt that makes their movements seem gangly and uncoordinated. He bobbed his head continually with what I suspected was the beat of the music but he was mouthing words I knew didn’t belong to any song.

I hate this. I really hate this. Walking on a treadmill indoors is stupid. It didn’t sound like anything that even Lady Gaga could put to a beat, so I gathered he was really not enjoying being in a gym on a treadmill.

Truthfully, I can’t explain to you why visuals like this strike me as interesting, but this kid did. He had one of those boy-next-door faces that was still trying to grow hair, and that I knew would soon phase out of cute into handsome with a little maturity. And he seemed continually distracted. Everything mundane held his attention for only a matter of seconds. His eyes constantly roamed for something worthwhile.

He caught me staring at him but didn’t seem unnerved by it. He nodded, smiled and kept on plowing forward, loose-legged on the treadmill keeping the rhythm with, I hate this, I really hate this, this is stupid.

I saw him several times after that, always dressed in heavy, disguising layers, always with a backpack and stocking cap and perpetually displeased to be in the gym, like his friends had tethered him to them like a pet needing to be walked. On one occasion, he sat on the leg machine next to me and I watched him carefully roll up the legs of his sweats just to his knees before beginning to do his presses. I was actually surprised to see that he had hairy legs and he caught me staring at them but assumed I was looking at his socks. They had a bold, garishly colored cartoon print on them, but I hadn’t noticed that until he told me they were a Christmas gift. Those were actually the first words he spoke to me and I remember this because it saved me the embarrassment of having been caught in a gym staring at a guy’s legs. Yes, I’m gay, but I normally don’t stare at people like they’re quarry. I prefer to say that at that time I was newly single and had finally reached the psychological maturity inclined to stay that way.

My first impression of Dirk was how unlike his buddies he was. They were fairly typical jocks, or jock wannabes, and he came across as the bookish, cerebral-type. Maybe that was because of the glasses he occasionally wore. I think we all mentally assess people by how they look and Dirk had a nerdy feel to him. But a cute nerdy feel. He didn’t stand around looking in the mirrors like most guys do in a gym. In fact, it appeared he avoided them. When he worked out his gaze traveled. I think that’s