A Friend when Needed
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Tad looked suddenly very serious. The game was long over and the last two pieces of pizza had gone cold. Beer had been drunk: enough to lower the inhibitions but not enough to drop them both into a stupor. He looked at Jason, squarely in the eyes.

“I can trust you, man,” he said, “I know I can. We’ve been true pals for so long that I feel I can tell you anything. I can, can’t I?”

Jason understood that the conversation was serious. He knew that Tad had broken up with his girlfriend Kellie, and he assumed that it was about that. Even when you are drunk, you can appreciate when gravity is called for.

“Of course you can,” said Jason. “That’s the way things are between us. Friends since pre-school, remember?”

Tad took one more slug from his beer bottle. He needed to collect himself.

“I’m a sick man,” he said.

“Hey, man, what is it?” Jason was concerned. “Is it serious? Is it cancer?”

“No. Sometimes I think that would be better,” said Tad. “No, I’m sick in the head … or sick in the balls. I’ve been seeing a shrink for the last couple years. I’ve been too ashamed to talk about it with anybody… even you.”

Jason was surprised. “What’s wrong with you, man? You seem OK to me.”

“Paraphilic disorders, is what the shrink says it is,” said Tad, putting his head in his hands. “Perverted sexual desires that are taking control of my life. It’s just getting worse and worse. The doctor says that I’ll need treatment to find a way through it.”

“Hey. Hey, I’m here for you, man,” said Jason. “What kind of desires are we talking about? Like nothing illegal, I hope.”

“I’ve started to do anti-social things, so that is a problem,” said Tad. “But I can’t function sexually without feeding my desires. That’s why Kellie left. I was so upset when she went. I just did my best to stay tough, but without her, it’s even worse. I can get into real trouble.”

“So, what do you need to do, or think about? Like whipping or shit like that? Or is it something gay?”

“No,” said Tad, seemingly offended. “Women are my weakness. Women’s clothing, underwear, pantyhose, shoes and hair. I’m just so fascinated by this stuff that I can’t function. I have to see it, watch, feel it, smell it, touch it, jack off over it. It’s driving me crazy. I am crazy.”

“Everyone likes a pretty girl,” said Jason. “What’s wrong with looking at girls’ stuff?”

“You don’t understand,” said Tad. Jason could see that he was distraught. “I buy this stuff, or I steal it from shops or clotheslines. I can’t control myself. I stole stuff from Kellie. She couldn’t handle it. I can understand why. I’m a freak.”

“Hey calm down, pal. This doctor of yours, he said that there’s treatment?”

“Oh, yes, there’s treatment. Sexual suppression. Effectively chemical castration. And denial of temptation. The doctor said that I need support people, but there’s only you. I don’t need a woman. Maybe that’s the problem. I need a friend. Would you be able to help me? That’d work. Would you consider moving in as my roommate to help me through this?”

Jason had always thought that Tad’s inner-city apartment was fantastic. That was where they were sitting, because Tad had a 65 inch TV and full sound system. Jason’s place was a dive across town and his laptop was the only TV. What harm would be done by him helping his friend out? He could spend a few weeks living in luxury. But was he really doing the right thing? Or for the right reasons?

They both worked in IT and could work from Tad’s apartment. Tad was already doing that, and had been for some time. That just allowed him greater freedom to engage in his fetishes. Jason could arrange it. He would be in the city for deliveries. He could help his friend and get some good work done outside the hot-desking, confused environment of his present workspace.

“If you need me, man, I am here for you,” Jason said. “But are you really doing the right thing? I mean, chemical castration sounds very serious. It has the word castration in it.”

“It’s just to stop the sex drive,” said Tad. “It’s not permanent. Therapy hasn’t worked. Anti-obsession drugs haven’t worked. This is what it comes down to. I have to do something. I’ve already had the shots. I just need somebody to make sure that I don’t relapse. I need to get over this thing – the paraphilic thing.”

Jason agreed to stay with Tad. Still, he remained uncertain. It worried him that Tad had been able to keep this internal turmoil from him, or that he had not been more of a friend so as to notice it. And he had never heard of paraphilic disorders. Were fetishes really that bad?

“Maybe you should just get rid of the stuff that you bought,” he said to Tad. “The female clothes and stuff?”

But Tad said that some of it was not his. He could not throw it out, but it should be placed out of reach. So, instead of the dumpster, there was a trunk of stuff put in what was for now Jason’s room (the spare room in Tad’s apartment) and Tad entrusted the only key to him.

“I can’t steal anything from outside,” said Tad. “If I can’t control myself, I’ll come to you. But please say no to me. I need to overcome this.”

Tad’s second PC was moved next to his work one, on the desk by the window in the living room. If Tad felt the urge to surf online to feed his urges, he could not do it from there. His cellphone was the other option so it was agreed that this could stay on the desk as well, when he was in his room. Even taking porn the old-fashioned way, with magazines, was not a possibility. As agreed, Jason would check his room for offending material from time to time.

But according to Tad, the drugs were quickly taking effect. He told Jason that he had been masturbating a minimum of 5 times a day before the drugs, and now he was not jacking off at all. Within a week, he was reporting how calm he felt.

Jason was noticing the changes too, but not in his sexual behavior. There was no doubt that the old Tad could be described as intense, whereas the drug-affected Tad was placid and gentle. These characteristics and his general inclination towards organization and tidiness made him an excellent roommate, or rather, host. Jason paid only nominal rent. He was doing Tad a favor, and Tad knew that. He bought all the food and cooked meals for them both. Because of the person he was, or perhaps the person he was becoming, it was Tad who attended to most household chores.

One Saturday, Tad approached Jason to say that he was ready to go out. “We’ll go and catch that game and grab a few beers on the way home,” he suggested.

Jason was ready for it. He was beginning to feel like a jailer working 24/7. Tad seemed over things.

They watched the game from high in the stands, but close to the end, Jason noticed that Tad was hardly looking at the game at all.

“It seems like even with the treatment, you still can’t stop checking out the pussy,” he said.

“Who would wear that to a game?” Tad was pointing out some scantily dressed girl.

“Somebody who’s so hungry for a fuck, she doesn’t mind the cold,” suggested Jason.

At the bar afterwards, Tad was checking out the women, but seemed more interested in what they were wearing. Jason thought it strange, but he was glad that Tad was not chasing tail. What was he supposed to do if he did? Stop him? Tell her that the guy was a sex addict trying to shake his problem?

Tad was not even drinking beer. For some reason, he had started to drink wine. He was more than a little drunk when they got home.

“I could dress better than those bitches,” said Tad. “Let’s get some of the stuff out of the trunk and I’ll show you. Come on. I’m not going to masturbate over it. I haven’t had an erection for days. It’s just to show you something.”

It was something that Jason did not understand anyway. He could not fathom why somebody would be interested in a set of women’s underwear without a woman wearing it. Still, if Tad was going to wear it, he would not be jacking off over it. He let him take out the pink set and also a pair of black heels and a short dress in a houndstooth pattern. Tad went into the bathroom and locked the door.

Jason sat down to watch the replay of the game on TV. Some time went by and then Jason realized that it was almost midnight. Tad had been in the bathroom for over an hour.

“Hey, Tad,” he said, banging on the door. “You better not be jacking off in there. That’d be a big backward step man, what with all the work you’ve put in, and the drugs and everything.”

“Get back on the couch, Jase,” said Tad through the door, somehow sounding very different.

Jason shrugged and went back to his seat.

The door opened and somebody stepped out of the bathroom, but it was not Tad.

“I got a bit carried away.” The voice, the same voice that Jason had heard through the door, did not seem to be Tad’s either, now coming from this stranger’s mouth. But Jason knew that the woman standing before him in that dress, was Tad.

Instead of the hair combed back off the forehead kept solid with product, all that had been washed out and the hair brushed across, concealing one eye. But the visible eye was made up to perfection, and the eyebrow shaped. And the lips of this vision were painted to perfection, appearing to invite Jason to kiss them.

The short dress showed long smooth legs that would rival the legs of any woman Jason had ever seen, on top of those black heels.

“Why?” That was the word that left Jason’s mouth. Not “What are you doing?” or even “Who are you?”

“I’ve been watching women all night,” she said, “but I haven’t been desiring them. I’ve been watching other people looking at them – desiring them. I want that. This isn’t a sexual thing. I’m over that. It’s an emotional thing. I want people to want me. That’s what I miss. Or maybe I never really had that. It was always me wanting what they had. I’m not sure that anybody has really wanted me.”

She seemed momentarily sad, but then visibly shook herself out of that feeling, as if preparing for action.

“If I thought your paraphilia thing was weird, this is super weird,” said Jason. But what was even stranger was that the erection stirring in his pants as she walked over to the door.

“Let’s go out,” she said. She put on Tad’s black jacket over the dress. Somehow on her it looked feminine, just short of the hem of the dress and making the legs look even longer. She looked at him as she had before. It was a look that invited lust.

“It’s after midnight,” Jason said.

“Take me out or take me to bed,” the creature demanded. She walked right up to Jason now sitting up. He could smell scent on her. It seemed to be driving Jason crazy. He stood up. In her heels they were face to face. Nose to nose. That close.

“This is crazy,” Jason observed.

“What’s crazy?” she asked. He could feel her breath; smell her hair; see a little moisture in her eye; a little tremble on her lips.

“What I’m feeling right now,” Jason replied, looking into her eyes. He was still looking, and she was staring back, as he felt her hand cup his swelling crotch; even while he felt her unbuckle his belt so that his pants could fall, and she could take his cock in both hands. Both those hands were needed, given the size of it at that point.

“What are we going to do with this?” she said.

“I hope you’re going to blow me,” said Jason. It would have seemed outrageous at any other time, to be sucked off by any man, let alone by his best friend, but by this point Jason’s balls were doing the thinking and he knew it.

“Not that,” she said. “This isn’t about sex. I told you: I’m through with that. This is about something else. Maybe even love. I want to look at you and for you to look at me.”

“I like looking at you,” Jason said. He pushed a lock of the hair from her face, and it seemed to double her beauty. And before he knew what was happening, he was kissing her. It was not a violent and hungry kiss, although it could well have been. It was a tender kiss, with his tongue gently penetrating, and her yielding to him.

It was right, and they both knew it.

“I can take you,” she said. “I promise you that you won’t have to see any part of me that you don’t like. Just keep looking in my eyes. I’m stretched and lubricated. I want you inside me.”

She shuffled backwards, still holding him by the cock, through the door to his room. Her tongue was wetting his face, her hot breath making the moistness warm.

“We can put a pillow under my butt,” she said.

Jason was barely listening. His eyes were feasting on hers. His senses of touch and smell and taste heightened by intense desire. She was underneath him now, guiding his cock towards her tightness.

Then he was inside her, and she was his, whimpering with hunger for him – the sound only a woman could make, so he thought. There was no Tad anymore. There was only her, with her body rolling gently with every stroke of his hips.

And with that squeal, as he groaned with more pleasure than he had ever known, they both knew it.

She was cured.

The End

© Maryanne Peters, 2020