“Let’s run a marathon together,” she said to me as we were falling asleep one night.
I studied Jamie’s face on the pillow next to me, her sleepily enthusiastic expression washed in the thin glow from the streetlight outside our Brooklyn apartment.
“Kim and Peter are doing the Brooklyn Half-Marathon in the spring. They’ve already started training, and I think it would be fun if we all ran together.”
I liked Kim and Peter, our married friends who lived across the street from us—I also resented them. They were the archetypical married couple who did everything together and never seemed to fight. Jamie always dragged me along in their footsteps, maybe hoping to learn whatever secret handshakes they used to keep their relationship from falling apart. Sometimes I wished I could just let her be a third wheel in their relationship & watch them carry out their twisted rituals from a safe distance.
I acquiesced to the marathon plan a little too quickly, in retrospect. But our six-year marriage was already in troubled seas, headed for the proverbial rocks. I’d gone through a bit of an identity crisis the previous year, and in its throes I very nearly ended up having an affair with one of my coworkers. I was desperate to recover from that stumble, and would have done or said just about anything to steer the relationship back toward open waters.
I said I couldn’t wait. She smiled softly and pulled me close. I returned the embrace, but I knew, even then, that it was a token gesture. My brain was screaming at me what I already knew, that I was only going along with what Jamie wanted because I didn’t know what other options existed. I was in over my head, but I’d already committed.
We’d started preparing for the race in the middle of winter, and after a particularly rough training run through the bitter cold, we decided it was time to find another option. Jamie signed us up for the most luxurious-looking gym I’d ever seen (in photos, considering I’d never actually set foot inside of one before).
It was dark inside, the extravagant facilities strategically illuminated by multicolored lights, ubiquitous speakers hammering out a constant stream of house mixes and high-tempo electronic music.
Jamie and I developed a ritual: We would run the treadmills, hit the showers, then crack our protein bars & nutrient drinks for the commute back home. We were getting fit and repairing our relationship at the same time, and it was incredible.
That is to say, it was incredible for about a week, until I came to understand that hated the treadmills more than I hated running in the cold. No matter what I played on my iPod during my runs, I ultimately just couldn’t shake myself out of the realization that I was running in place, staring at a wall for an hour while a screen in front of me showed a tiny animated runner pumping up and down a set of smooth rolling hills as the “distance” counter slowly ticked up one tenth of a mile at a time. The grind was torturous. I was dying for something more fulfilling, but I had no idea what could possibly satisfy that need. I was getting ready to call it quits, marriage be damned; I couldn’t take this shit any more.
Then I stumbled across the steam room.
I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed it before, tucked away behind the banks of showers in the men’s locker room. It was masked by a permanently-fogged glass door that opened into a tiled room whose dimensions were unknowable due to the thick mist that wrapped around my body as soon as I crossed the threshold. It had benches along each side that were populated with sweaty men who were covered to varying degrees with clean white towels.
I was in a committed monogamous relationship at the time, and despite my untapped bisexuality and latent urge to explore other options, I resolved myself to a creed of “look, but don’t touch” for the sake of my own moral code.
And oh boy, I looked.
The particular gym that Jamie had chosen for us was notorious for its appeal to gay men. At the time I wasn’t aware of this reputation, which is why I was caught completely off-guard when I found myself caught in the middle of my very first “circle jerk.”
It started with a repetitive motion that I glimpsed from the corner of my eye through the haze of steam. My attention was immediately drawn by the unexpected movement; it was only one person at first, but as I glanced around I could see through the thick fog that others in the room had begun to take notice as well, and were beginning to join in.
The event quickly escalated. Like a symphony, it started slowly and grew moment by moment into a silent crescendo, and then in turn each member of the orchestra finished his part, cleaned up, and sank back into the comfort and concealment of the enveloping fog.
I left the room shortly after, doing my best to conceal the uncontrollable erection that was hiding under my towel, and ducked quickly into one of the showers. I cranked the faucet to release a spray of hot water across my body, and then I set to work achieving some release of my own.
Afterward, stewing in a special blend of exhilaration, guilt, and intense curiosity, I stood under the shower for a while and let everything sink in. It didn’t take long for the guilt to be subdued and ejected by the other two emotions, especially after I realized how good it had made me feel to be an anonymous observer to such a breathtakingly erotic display.
I didn’t tell a soul about what I’d seen. Some miraculous alignment of the planes had allowed me to witness a genuine marvel of nature; I’d be damned if I was going to spoil that majesty by putting it into mere words. I especially didn’t tell Jamie, for fear she would set the jealousy that fiercely guarded our relationship to stand watch over the steam room, keeping me out of reach of its mysterious refuge.
I thought that what had happened would be a one-time occurrence, an anomaly. I figured it was the result of a miraculous coalescence of circumstances, that I just happened to find myself caught in the middle of a ring of sin that one time and it would never happen again.
On my very next visit, my very next visit, I discovered that this assumption had been completely wrong.
I’m not sure if there was some kind of signal that I’d missed, or if it was a prearranged meeting; apropos of nothing, two fit young guys across from me slid toward each other, unwrapped each other from their towels, and began a lip-biting noiseless duet. As I looked around, I saw that everyone in the vicinity was watching as intently as I was, but the two performers were either lost in the moment and oblivious to the attention, or at least affecting a facade of nonchalance.
When it was over, everyone else went back to business as usual, but I had been changed.
I needed more.
Every handful of trips I took to the steam room from then on, if I could sweat it out long enough, I’d be treated to a tantalizing show. Sometimes it was just a small cluster of people pleasuring themselves; other times, I would get lucky and they’d group up, helping each other unwind after their workout sessions.
During one trip I was discreetly propositioned to join an older man in his shower stall. I politely turned him down, but the thrill of that potential experience was exhilarating. That was the only time I was ever directly approached; I assume I was successful in telegraphing my desire to watch, or perhaps it was just because I didn’t know the secret nonverbal language that the active parties were using to coordinate.
I was fine with the arrangement, and managed to restrain my need to touch, to be touched, to break the fourth wall and join in on all the fun.
I never did join in, out of a sense of monogamous devotion to my partner and a touch of social anxiety, but I had no problem with watching intently. It became a sanctuary for me. There was a mysterious, seductive energy in that heavy fog.
Sometimes I would go to the gym by myself when Jamie wasn’t feeling up to working out. Sometimes I’d go to the gym when I didn’t feel like working out, and just go straight down to the steam room. Even when there was no contact happening, that place had a Pavlovian effect on me. I would become aroused just by being in that space, inhaling the eucalyptus fragrance piped in with the hot steam. I couldn’t get enough.
I was hooked on the gym for all the wrong reasons.
In the weeks that followed, my distaste for running on the treadmills never waned, but my motivation to hit the gym was at an all-time high. I would power through my runs alongside Jamie, then hit the steam room for a little “relaxation.” I would breathe the heat and steam and lust in that room, finish myself off in the shower, and go home eager for the next workout.
“Look, but don’t touch.” God, how I wanted to do both.
Jamie was intensely proud of my resolve; one day she remarked that she’d never seen me so eager to exercise. I just shrugged, smiling, hoping my face wasn’t somehow betraying what was really keeping me on that treadmill. Looking back, I wonder how she would have reacted if I’d told her the truth. Maybe she would have been completely on board with it, as long as it kept me training and I promised not to participate. I’ll never know.
Because of my secret deviant pastime, my physical fitness was better than it ever had been. I had lost a lot of weight, and my endurance and self-confidence soared. I felt fucking fantastic.
The day of the half-marathon came, and despite my nerves, it couldn’t have gone better. I was in top form, and as I matched pace with Jamie and our friends, I realized I could have actually pushed myself much harder if I’d been running solo. Thank you, steam room.
After that final run, Jamie and I had to cancel our gym memberships for financial reasons. It was with a heavy heart that I said goodbye to that tiny carnal paradise that had afforded me the strength to complete the most grueling athletic undertaking in my entire life.
I wish I could say that running that marathon together saved our marriage, but a few months after the event, Jamie and I finally worked up the courage to call it quits. It just wasn’t meant to be, no matter how far we ran or how much sweat we shed together, but I have no regrets; besides the physical benefits and the achievement of actually following through with the marathon, my time in the steam room pulled back the curtain on a side of my sexuality that I’d never let myself explore.
That steam room circle jerk facilitated a voyeuristic and homerotically indulgent journey that guided my path to self-discovery. It's likely one of the most important things to ever happen to me.