"I don't think I'm happy," Jimmy Johnson said to no one in particular. Which was good, because no one in particular was listening to him.

He stood in the shower, hot water pounding down over him, rubbing and tugging urgently at his flaccid cock. He'd been at it for nearly five minutes, and he couldn't even get hard, much less get off, but John James "Jimmy" Johnson wasn't about to give up. Not yet, at last. Not before trying to follow through on what was almost always the best part of his day. Everything after The Morning Squirt, as he called it, was usually a disappointment.

If you were to ask Jimmy if he was unhappy, he wouldn't say that he was. On the other hand, he wouldn't say that he wasn't, either. In fact, he'd probably look at you like he wasn't sure what the question actually meant. To Jimmy, the state of his happiness (or lack thereof) wasn't something to give any thought to. He didn't think of himself in those terms. He wasn't happy or unhappy, he simply was.

But this morning, he was perilously close to unhappiness. 

A litany of words and phrases ran screaming through his head as he continued to desperately work the lather at his groin. Come on, he thought, come on come on come one johnson pull your johnson oh johnson pull your goddamn johnson goddamn it just a little bit more, just a little bit little tit squeeze those tits together for me squeeze them squeeze me please just squeeze my johnson oh god just squeeze just squeeze come on come on come on.

But there was no coming for Jimmy, not this morning. In fact, it seemed the harder he tried, and the more he concentrated, the more elusive his erection became. He found himself imagining that if he continued any longer, it would only be a matter of time before his penis completely shriveled up and retreated inside of his body again. So it was with this alarming image ringing through his imagination that he finally gave up, rinsed the soap off his body and stepped out of the shower.

He tried to focus on other things as he urinated and toweled himself dry, but it was difficult. His morning ejaculation was usually what it took to clear his mind and get ready to face the day. Without it, his thoughts were jumbled and chaotic, disorganized. He didn't have a clear starting point for the day. And without knowing where to begin, how could  he know where he was going?

Jimmy took the towel and scrubbed the steam off the bathroom mirror. This is what he did every morning so that he could shave. But this morning, his hand didn't immediately head for the shaving lotion. Instead, his hand didn't move at all. He stood there, in front of the mirror, looking at himself. And not looking at himself the way he did every morning, zeroing in at the minutia of his face as he slid his razor over his skin, looking for stray hairs or tiny nicks and cuts. No, today he saw himself. And what he saw, he did not care for.

"Holy shit," Jimmy Johnson muttered under his breath.

He knew he'd let himself go in the years since he settled down. But somehow, he hadn't really acknowledged just how far things had gone. Now, though, it was like the blinders had been lifted from his eyes, and he could the stretch marks running their crinkly, evil lines down his distended belly, he could see the harsh line where his slab of flab rolled over onto itself, covering flesh with more flesh, he could see that his flaccid cock had lost an inch, maybe even two, as the layers of fat had found their way to his groin. And all of this mass was covered with wispy, wiry hairs — not a sexy shock of hair on his chest, but rather something sparse and patchy, like the thin haze of fur you might find coating an ogre.

Which is what he felt like at that moment, staring at himself in the mirror. An ogre. John James "Jimmy" Johnson The Ogre. A 42-year-old-man who was fat and hairy and unpleasant and who never bothered to stop and ask himself if he was happy. Until now. Until this moment, standing here, in front of himself, seeing himself for the first time in years.

Am I happy, he thought to himself. Is this what I want to be?

* * *

By the time Jimmy made it to the kitchen, the rest of the family had taken it over. His son, Jonas, and daughter Jennifer were already at the table, wolfing down toaster waffles while bickering at each other through mouthfuls of food. His wife, Jasmine, was on the phone, already in touch with her assistants, snapping orders at them in between sharp, insistent sips of espresso.

Jimmy found himself strangely unwilling to enter the kitchen. It was as if there was some invisible barrier that slipped through the doorway, blocking out passage from the hallway. Some sort of thin membrane that he would have to push himself through if he wanted to enter the bright, cheery, yellow-coloured kitchen where his breakfast was waiting for him. But he wasn't sure he wanted breakfast. He wasn't sure he wanted breakfast or coffee or to kiss his wife or to say hello to his children. He wasn't sure he wanted to have any of the things that were waiting for him there, in that room, in that life.

No, maybe he'd just stay right here. Or, better yet, maybe he could just slip out the back door and be on his way. Stop at McDonalds for an Egg McMuffin and a coffee. That'd be nice. Something a little salty and greasy to start the day. That would be nice.

He took one shaking step backwards, ready to retreat, when his wife caught his eye.

"What are you doing?" she asked him. "No, not you," she said into the phone.

"What?" Jimmy said.

"I said, what are you doing? Your breakfast is on the table."

"Right," he said, and nodded his head and smiled. He hoped it would look normal and natural. It must have convinced Jasmine of something, because she turned back to her telephone and continued pacing through the kitchen.

Jimmy kept his position, his eyes now locked on his wife, watching how she moved ferociously, each step like the sweep of a jackknife into the flesh of something recently dead, a slab of roadkill on the side of the road, its eyes glassy and unseeing. He imagined that he was that slab, and that it was his own eyes that had been unseeing for so many years. And with each ferocious step that Jasmine took, he felt his stomach climb closer and closer to his throat as fear began to leak into his blood.

She'll kill me, he thought, and though he didn't think it literally, he believed it completely. She wouldn't kill him with a knife or with a gun or with poison. But she'd be the death of him just the same. She'd wear him down with those ferocious steps, with legs like jackknives. His hands moved reflexively towards his stomach, as if he expected his guts to start tumbling out, the long chain of his intestines tumbling to the floor.

"Seriously, what's going on?" Jasmine asked him again. She'd actually bothered to pull the telephone away from her face this time. "Are you okay?"

"I'm not," said, but his mouth was suddenly dry. He swallowed desperately and then tried again. "I'm not, I don't feel good. I think I'm...sick."

"You don't look very good. Do you have a fever?"

"I don't think so. I mean, I don't know. Maybe? It could..."

"Let me get the thermometer," she said, then put the phone in front of her mouth again. "I'm going to have to call you back, Shelly," she said as she disappeared around the corner, headed towards the bathroom.

"I'm just going to go and sit down!" he called after her. He knew it was silly, but he still couldn't bring himself to enter the kitchen. The very through of passing over that threshold, of pressing through that imaginary membrane, made his stomach toss and tumble. He looked over at his children one more time and felt a a sudden splash of cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. He hurried towards the living room and sat quickly on the black leather ottoman that accompanied the recliner his wife had gotten him for Father's Day three years before. He hated it. It was where the dog sat most of the time.

"Here," Jasmine said, emerging from the hallway with her arm outstretched. "Put this in your mouth."

Jimmy opened his mouth and she slipped the tip of the thermometer under his tongue. "I'll be right back," she said. "I just need to make a phone call." She was already punching numbers into the phone as she moved away, each step the blinding slash of a stiletto.

I could go, Jimmy thought. I should go, just go right now, out the door, get out of here, before some comes back. But where would he go? To work? That made the most sense, but then what? He'd just have to come back home again afterwards, and Jasmine would be here and waiting for him, wondering why he had run off on her that morning before she'd even been able to find out if he had a fever.