Stiffed

On the fifth morning, Martin viewed his erect penis with something approaching despair. The first day, he didn’t even notice his erection until he sat on the toilet and his socks got wet. Was this a bad dream? The next day, he woke thirty minutes before his alarm and was still lying there, staring down in wonder, when it went off. As he showered and dressed, Martin tried to remember the last time he’d had an erection at all, let alone a spontaneous one. He tucked it in the waistband of his tightey-whiteys and drove to work with his chin a little higher than usual. 

On the third day, Martin sat in front of his dusty mirror, staring at a body he didn’t recognize. His penis stood to attention, mindless of the frail, flabby skin surrounding it, uncaring that Martin’s hormones were no longer preparing him to beget life but readying him for death. On the fourth day, Martin cursed the organ viciously. It was embarrassing. Improper. Insulting. It wasn’t right. Why couldn’t it just settle down and leave him be?

So it was on the fifth morning, a Friday, that Martin awoke and regarded his erect penis with impotence. He’d learned through painful trial and error that there was nothing to be done. Masturbation was futile. Sexual contact, laughable. The only thing to do was to tuck the bastard into a pair of Selfridges silk boxers — his only concession to the office’s casual Fridays — and pray it gave out by lunchtime. 

There was something deeply wrong, Martin thought, about having an erection in the office. When he sat down at his desk, his penis, being somewhat shorter than average, had a bothersome habit of slipping out from under his waistband, leaving him unable to safely stand up. So he hid in his cubicle, trying to move as little as possible, clenching his glutes and thighs to redirect bloodflow, staring at his computer screen, hoping that no one interrupted him. Every noise from the hallway made him jump.

Martin glanced behind him and switched to a new browser. His homepage loaded with agonizing sluggishness. When it finished, he typed as quick as he could, forefingers jabbing at the keyboard. “Why do I keep waking up with an erection?” Nothing. “Persistent unwanted erection in 68-year-old man causes and solutions.” Again, nothing. Stupid machine. Martin hit the enter key a few times out of frustration, then turned his computer off, sinking back into his chair. His glans, raw from a week of relentless chafing, prickled against even the smooth silk of his boxers.

Perhaps it had settled down enough to manage a trip to the little boy’s room. Martin secured it under his waistband and stood up carefully. This section of the office was, mercifully, empty. So was the hallway. Martin scuttled as fast as he could. He ducked into the toilet and locked the door behind him. Unfortunately, the silk seemed to be prolonging things, so he was forced to sit, holding his penis down to avoid any spills. Getting things flowing was difficult enough at his age, and the erection made things near-impossible, no matter how much Martin relaxed or — what had Em called it? — box-breathed, no matter how much his bladder ached. Unlike some men, Martin had never been particularly fond of his manhood. He’d never named it, rarely shown it off. If anything, he admitted to himself, he’d been a little embarrassed about it. Was his current situation a result of that neglect? Some kind of protest? 

Martin’s train of thought was interrupted by a loud buzz. His phone was going off. It was buried somewhere in his trousers. He scrambled to dress himself, cursing silently. The buzzing stopped; Martin paused; it started again, spiking his blood pressure further. Emergency. To arms. He pulled himself together, fumbling with his fly. It was caught in something. Damn boxers. Martin finally got ahold of it, yanked it free, and pain washed over him. Stabbing pain; he looked down to see a trickle of blood spilling over his hands. The fly had caught on the skin of his scrotum, which was now bleeding. Martin suppressed a scream and stuffed everything away. He rinsed his hands and rushed out the door — and immediately bumped into a lanky woman, knocking a pile of papers out of her hands.

Martin’s scream was an octave higher than Em’s. In those heels she was as tall as he was. She was wearing a yellow dress under that awful peeling leather biker jacket of hers. Martin’s scrotum throbbed. Em was clutching her breasts, wincing, and — oh dear — crying, trying to stifle ever-louder sobs.

Jesus, Martin muttered. He knelt down and gathered the spilled papers together. Stood up and pushed the pile toward Em. But she wasn’t looking at the papers. She was looking at Martin’s crotch, which, he now saw, was tented like a schoolboy, erection on full display. There was a dark stain near the fly. 

“Oh good Lord,” Martin said. He fled down the hall back to his office. Shrunk down in his seat, unable to even open the computer. His scrotum ached. 

Time passed and Em didn’t appear. No-one did. In fact, nothing happened at all, so Martin soon found himself filing into the weekly all-hands meeting. The last to arrive, he tucked himself away at the far end of the large oval table. The air was warm and stale and smelled faintly of ozone. Something was buzzing. As soon as Martin sat, the middle-aged woman at the head of the table cleared her throat. Susan openly relished her authority. She kept one hand on a knockoff Hermes bag sitting on the table while the other, clad in too-tight costume jewellery, gestured at some unfortunate victim. 

Martin had a sickening feeling he knew who today’s would be.

“I’m afraid I must have a difficult conversation with you all today,” Susan began, voice quavering with what could have been distress or delight. “An unfortunate and totally unacceptable incident occurred in the office earlier. Something I specifically warned about when we discussed the idea of ‘casual Fridays.’ Clearly some of you cannot be trusted to act your age.” 

The faces around the table looked confused and on edge. Susan let the pause stretch. “Sorry,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a knuckle. “It’s difficult for me to even talk about something so… indecent. Em” — she stretched a bejewelled hand out on the table — “perhaps it’d be best if you went outside.”

Em stiffened. The room turned toward her. She looked back and forth, a rabbit in headlights.

“Go on,” Susan said, shooing. Em stood up slowly, almost gingerly, as if unwilling or unable to fully straighten her back.

Martin saw it first. Under her stomach, where her dress grew tight, the fabric stuck out in a large lump. Martin knew that sight all too well. But before anyone else noticed, Em grabbed her stack of papers and positioned it in front of her crotch. She turned and left the room without a word.

“Shut your mouth, Martin, or you’ll catch flies,” Susan said. “Don’t pretend to be shocked, either. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

She launched into a description of events so divorced from reality Martin stopped being able to process. He was still reeling from seeing Em in the same predicament. A few words — lecherous, salacious, perverted — rose through a loud ringing in Martin’s ears. He looked around the room, saw expressions of horror. Dismissed any hope of defending himself. There was nothing to do but flee. 

Martin leaped to his feet, his chair crashing to the floor behind him. The office fell silent. No one would meet his eye. In fact, they all seemed to be staring at — Martin looked down. Ah, of course.

He grabbed a single piece of blank A4 paper from the table, held it gingerly in front of his crotch, and shuffled out of the room. 

Martin drove with a reckless abandon wholly inappropriate for a man with his testosterone levels. He tailed, overtook, and even honked — honked! — as he tried to follow a route he’d taken only once before. Months ago, Em’s bike, which was somehow in even worse condition than her biker jacket, had refused to start; Martin had been cajoled into driving her home.

Now he prowled vehicularly through a recently privatized council estate, scanning and dismissing each near-identical home. Every minute was another chance for someone to call the police on him. But there! Propped up against a peeling white wall, in the shade of a dangerously leaning pine tree, was that god-awful bike. Thank God. 

Before he could come to his senses, Martin parked on a double yellow line, strode through the surprisingly well-kept front garden, and knocked manfully on the front door. When nothing happened, he knocked again. Some sort of camera stuck to the wall blinked at him.

The door opened a crack.

“Martin?”

Em closed the door, unlatched multiple metal bolts, then pulled it open all the way. Her eyes were red and puffy. She had a cigarette tucked behind her ear.

“Were you followed?”

Martin flinched. The panic that had finally started to subside roared back. He turned to look at the road. Em, apparently satisfied by his reaction, pulled him inside and slammed the door shut. As she replaced all the bolts, Martin appraised the corridor ahead. It was filled, floor to ceiling, with cardboard boxes. Every surface not supporting a box was covered in junk. Em squeezed past Martin and pulled him through the narrow passage between the stuff. On the right, a pile of dusty glass bottles. At the corner, a basket of old dog toys. 

The kitchen was little better. Em heaved a pile of papers off a chair and onto the floor, beckoning Martin to sit down. Before he knew it, there was a steaming cup of tea adding yet another stain to the table next to him. The two of them sat there, sipping, neither willing to break the silence, for several minutes.

“Did Susan send you?” Em asked.

“What? Of course not. I’m almost certainly fired.”

Martin and Em took a moment to process the other’s surprise. 

“Did you not complain about… this morning?” Martin asked.

“What? Of course not,” Em mimicked. “You know there are cameras in the corridors, right?”

Martin had not known that. 

“Is that why you always carry those papers?” He asked. When Em cocked her head in confusion, he continued. “To cover… you know.”

“You saw?” Em said. “Are you going to tell Susan?”

“As I said, almost certainly fired.”

“Right, right.”

They both sipped their tea. But this time, their sips were a little less awkward, as if the room had grown larger.

“You don’t care?” Em asked.

Martin shrugged. “None of my business. Except — I thought maybe you might know why… this… is happening.”

Em sat back and considered. Then she started from the beginning. Her mother had been an activist of some kind. Fought against a housing development not unlike this one. Lost. Never really recovered. Em had grown up in a council house filled with bitter memories, in the shadow of a pine tree that didn’t belong here. 

A few years back, the conglomerate behind that development started work on a manufacturing plant nearby. Martin knew the one. There’d been some protests against it, but nothing major. Em had hoped this would bring her mother back. Instead, she got worse, began hearing things, seeing shadows, insisting she was being followed, tracked. When she passed, an old friend of hers pulled Em aside at the funeral. Implied her mother wasn’t crazy. That they’d all been put on lists.

On the internet, Em found similar stories, anecdotes of activists suddenly giving up, getting arrested, going missing. So she tried looking into the plant. Every attempt met a dead end, or worse, put her in touch with the company’s PR team. 

Then people started getting erections. At first, Em, like Martin, blamed herself. But Em, unlike Martin, had the ability to use the internet. Saw people posting about their issues. Some more publicly than others. Even one who mistakenly posted their attempted Google searches onto their social media feed.

Martin put his head in his hands.

It didn't take long for Em to figure it out. The plant was producing pharmaceuticals. Something must be leaking into the water. Martin looked at his empty cup. Em pointed to the sink, which was filled with empty plastic water bottles.

“So,” Martin said. “An immensely powerful, well-connected company is contaminating our water supply with some chemical that’s giving people erections. And you want us to expose them, knowing what they did to your mother?”

Em furrowed her brow. “I already complained to every local, county, and national office I could find. Nothing. Then I got this.” She gestured with her foot to one of the papers that had been on Martin’s chair. Along the top: “CEASE AND DESIST.”

“So basically,” Em said, “I’m fucked. And you might be, too, now you’re here.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Martin wondered why he wasn’t panicking. He should be. But instead, he felt totally calm. In fact, he almost felt excited. He leaped to his feet and started pacing back and forth. 

It was his turn to explain. Most men his age would kill for the kind of erections he’d suffered through. Would pay, at the very least. So why not let them? Turn one of their houses into a hotel, a retreat for elderly lovers who want to revisit their raunchier days without having to take a pill. What would the company do? Complain their product was being stolen? That would be like admitting they were leaking it in the first place.

As Martin talked, Em’s eyebrows gradually rose. Soon she was standing, too. Martin and Em stood in the cluttered kitchen, facing each other, hearts racing, both breathing heavy with excitement. 

They remembered their error at the same time. Looked down at their crotches. But both were completely flat.