Baseball Erotica #2: Ken Griffey Jr.

With the possible exception of competitive pole dancing, no sport is more erotic than baseball in late summer. The long days of lounging about on plane rides and in clubhouses and dugouts and hotels, the close proximity to your teammates in all states of undress, the long gazes from the pitcher's mound to home plate and back, the words whispered during chance encounters at first base, the memories of that youthful night, out in the anonymous corn-covered land of the minors, when you and that kindly old reliever briefly expressed your hidden desires to one another in that Waffle House bathroom… Well. You get the idea. Baseball, and baseball players, are extremely sexy, and our Baseball Erotica fiction series celebrates that fact with some imagined (note for lawyers: 100 percent totally made-up) scenarios about famous figures from America's pastime's past engaging in various acts. The second installment is below. Enjoy!

Even the darkness rolling in from the west did nothing to cool the wet heat that hung in the air, the thermal urgency of the molecules creating a viscous soup thick enough to float a thick pour of longing across the top. Lit from below by the pale glow of his phone, Ken Griffey Jr. scowled into the night beside the ripening dumpsters tucked behind a filthy Orlando Denny's.

She should have been here 15 minutes ago.

Ken kicked at the sandy gravel, watching as the pebbles skittered across the parking lot like buckshot. He palmed his phone, feeling the slick back of it press into the folds of his wide, muscular hand, thinking about whether or not to text the night's backup.

A family of four stepped out of the aggressively air-conditioned 24-hour breakfast chain and Ken felt that familiar wave of nausea wash over him. Recognized. Drawing the curved brim of his ball cap over his eyes, he hunched his shoulders and turned away from the excited chirping of a white middle-aged man.

Weary, he checked the time again, clenching and unclenching his jaw in rhythm with the flickering street lamp while he rubbed his fingertips across old calluses.

Ken shaded his eyes as a pair of high beams flashed their way around the corner. Recovering, he watched a tall, lean blonde climb out of a Pontiac Grand AM: her sturdy calf muscles, her boyish frame, her pert breasts, the harsh edge of her jawbone. Pale yellow hair fell around her face like butter trained to coil tight as department store giftwrap, but he didn't mind. Two bald caps would keep that smoothly restrained.

She waved to him, calling out through the insect cacophony of the Florida summer night. Ken gritted his teeth, walking tensely over to his rental SUV, flicking his fingertips as a signal for her to join him.

"Hey, Kenny Powers!"

Ken felt the bile burn the tastebuds on the back of his tongue. Panicking, he focused on her thin mouth and the way smoking had creased her lips into used tissue paper despite her young age. It occurred to him that he didn't know her name, but he didn't care—he had stopped trying to learn their names when he realized they didn't care if he got it right. The leather in the rental sounded a huge wet fart as her sweat-slick thighs rippled across it.

They were off.

She babbled the whole way, chattering like those wind-up teeth his kids got trick-or-treating that one year. (As he exited the freeway, he realized that he only knew about those stupid walking teeth because he'd never been playing ball around Halloween.) Irritated, Ken jerked the wheel hard, humping the curb as he entered the Holiday Inn parking lot.

"Wanna play dress up?" The words fell out of his mouth like marbles, obvious and too loud. Her eyes lit up anyway.

"Ooooooh, kinky! I like it!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands like a seal begging for fish.

Ken took a deep breath and let slip a strained smile. "Well then. Let's get started."

As usual, they skipped the front desk. It made the girls feel special if he handled the minutiae ahead of time. Besides, he hated how the staff gawped at him, never mind what they might say—and to whom—if they saw him come in with… whatshername.

Ken felt the skin on the back of his neck tighten into gooseflesh when he slipped the plastic card into the lock, shivering at the sudden downward rush of blood that coincided with the machine clicks of the door yielding to him. The room felt cold and wet like the Baltic Sea, and Ken headed straight for the black garment bag waiting for him on the theft-proof hangers. The zipper felt like a shard of ice between his fingers but warmed quickly under his heat. Slipping his hand inside the bag, he inhaled deeply the stale sweat and body odor that so eagerly snaked into his nostrils.

"Ummm, what the fuck is that?!"

She didn't bother to conceal the disgust in her voice but Ken was unconcerned. He'd learned to spot the girls too curious not to play along. "I thought you liked to play dress up?"

"What the fuck?!" There was a blur of peroxide blonde as she recoiled. Ken cradled the garment patiently, waiting for her scorn to soften. "OK, that smells like a dead vagina."

"Actually," Ken replied with a sly grin, "this is a period-accurate garment for historical reenactments involving sailors in the late 19th century."

The silence that fell over the fluid-stained motel room was thick enough to choke a songbird. But when Ken walked into the yellowed bathroom, the pitter-patter of her feet gave away her secret enthusiasm.

As soon as her sharp heels clicked upon the dinged linoleum, his fingers were pressed into the soft flesh of her cheeks, her thin lips buckling under his insistent grip. Ken felt that familiar anticipation start to gather between his legs as he applied liquid latex to her visage, his urgency dampened by his desire for perfection.

Tap, tap, tap goes the latex.

Sniff, sniff, scowl goes the girl.

Tuft, tuft, smoosh go the coarse, white hairs Ken removes from his Ziploc baggie and applies to her face.

Her mouth was agape, but Ken could smell her musky arousal, the ever-insistent head of his cock pulsing with each thatch of appliquéd hair. He watched her eyes trace the outline of his obvious intentions pressed into the dark, denim seam of his jeans. Careful to wash his hands, but not before deeply inhaling the rotten, fishy stench of old latex, Ken slipped out of the claustrophobic bathroom and returned with the fetid woolens of the costume.

"Put this on, seaman," Ken growled in a low, hissing whisper. "Put it on, count to 100, and come to the bed."

She nodded, the hairs quivering on her now-bearded face.

With that, Ken closed the door and took his position on the bed: seated, feet on the floor, mirror in view. He heard her counting under her breath in a low murmur, but was jolted out of his aural voyeurism by the harsh drone of the bathroom fan. Maybe she thought he could hear her.

His balls clenched upwards at the thought.

It was finally time.

Reaching down into the deepest corner of his widest pocket, he plucked the Ring Pop out, tearing the plastic wrapper and slipping the blue raspberry gem onto his finger. He gingerly unzipped his fly, wincing as his cock sprang forward in defiance.

He set his left hand atop his knee, just so, careful to light the sucrose jewel just right, so that the hotel lamp light might sparkle across its edges. With his right hand he began to softly rub his shaft between his thumb fingers, keeping his motions low and close to the pubic bone. No matter how much the thickly swollen ridge of him begged for the pressure of his touch, Ken refrained. He'd learned that lesson the hard way.

Ken smelled it as soon as the door opened, and the sight brought out such longing in him it was slightly uncomfortable. Before him stood the sailor.

It was time to pay penance to the mariner.

"Stand here," he barked, turgid with impatience.

The tall woman, now striking in a lumpy bald camp and high-school-theater beard, stepped close enough that he could hear her breathe. She smelled like cheap body glitter and the surfaced carnage of a shipwreck. She was chewing gum, which made him want to cry bitter, angry tears.

"Say you're the mariner," Ken called out hoarsely.

"Huh?" She cracked her gum. "The martyr?"

"Noooo!" Ken shrieked, his dick deflating at her rough manners. "THE MARINER!"

"The mariner? What the fuck is the mariner?"

"Shut up! Shut up! Just fucking say it, OK, just fucking say it!!!"

Her blue eyes grew round with bewilderment. "I'm the mariner?"

At this, Ken whimpered, gripping his cock to the point of bursting, the blood trapped in his glans turning his flesh into dark purple vinyl. "Say it again."

"I'm the mariner?"

Ken's eyes fluttered upwards as the slit in his cock began to weep that familiar tell, his pre-come oozing forth like the end of a tube of toothpaste. "Say it again."

"Um, I'm the mariner."

Ken wailed, body shivering, saliva collecting in the corners of his mouth. "Suck my ring!"

"What the fuck?"

"SUCK MY RING!"

"Jesus you ballplayers are fucking freaks."

With that, she kneeled before him, her beard scratching the tops of his fingers as she took the blue candy into her mouth, swirling her tongue around its contours, her lips enveloping its plastic base. Tears sprang to Ken's eyes as he watched her in the mirror, the old mariner stooped before him, taking him in. "Pay your respects to the boy king!"

Saline streaked down his face as his hand began to pump faster and faster, her head swiveling around the sucker as his asshole clenched in excitement. His motions became more urgent, inching upwards to finally rub against the screaming need nestled beneath his frenulum. Inhaling deeply the scent of sea rot and pussy and tears and snot and candy and motel, Ken's shoulders began to shake, loosening him with such corrosive power that he began to sob long, searing wails.

"SAY IT WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL, MARINER!"

He aimed his weapon at the mirror and came in splurting, streaky chunks, spraying the reflection of the old sea captain with the burning embarrassment of his fantastic failures, gazing once more at the weathered old man slurping his fantasy ring before yanking it from her mouth. Shoving the bejeweled pacifier into his drippy, open mouth, Ken curled prone on the bed, safe and warm and regal.

The mariner had forgiven him once more.

Dedicated to the long-suffering baseball fans of Seattle. Follow Leigh Cowart on Twitter.