1

Gun oil has always given me erections–the smell, the slipperiness. Painful erections, like a sausage on a grill about to burst its casing. My AR-15 helped with that, a few bashes in the penis with the stock would take care of them.

I kept him clean, I kept him oiled, I kept him close. You never know when you will need your AR-15. Assaults happen every day; rapes, murders, car-jacking… riots are just the beginning. I have my bug-out bag right beside the front door. I don’t trip over it very often anymore.

A typical weekend with my AR-15 includes camping and rafting and hiking and hunting grizzly bear. I don’t know if my AR-15 would stop a grizzly bear, but at least we’d die together. I love camping the best. Sleeping outdoors, fresh air, crisp nighttime temperatures, snuggled in my polar bag, sweating, cuddling my AR-15, the faint whiff of spent nitrocellulose coming from the barrel.

Oh, God, AR-15. How could you throw this all away? What have we done?

 

2

“Let’s go rob a liquor store,” AR says, his voice muffled in the hard case.

“What? Why?” I ask.

“Because you want to.”

“But I don’t want to.”

“Fine, because I want to.”

“I am not going to rob a liquor store.”

“Sissy.”

“Stop that.”

“Nancy boy.”

“I’m a man, a real man.”

“Then why don’t you want to rob a liquor store?”

I drive home and leave AR in the truck. His metal is cold when I get him out the next morning. He doesn’t say a word to me for nearly a week.

 

3

“An unused weapon is a useless weapon,” he whispers in our dark bedroom, propped against the wall between the bedframe and the nightstand, close, so I could reach out and touch him if I woke up in the middle of the night.

“Leave the back door unlocked,” he says. “Maybe someone will break in.”

“I’ll take you to the range tomorrow. Run a couple of hundred green-tip through you.”

“It’s not enough for me any more. I was made to do a thing. You’re so vanilla.”

“It’s almost deer season,” I say.

“Deer? Who cares about deer?”

“I do. I love venison.”

“This isn’t about meat, it’s about blood.”

“I’m not leaving the back door open.”

“I want to kill a burglar. I want to keep you safe.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Will you at least take me to the range tomorrow?”

“I said I would.”

 

4

“Don’t do that, please,” I say to AR.

“What?”

“Grunt every time I put a round in a magazine.”

“‘Round,’” he says. “‘Magazine.’ I love it when you use technical terms. So precise.”

“OK, OK,” I reply.

“Are you going to clean me?”

“I cleaned you after the last time we went to the range.”

“But my barrel is all dusty. My trigger is all greasy.”

“No, I said.”

“I have needs, you know,” AR says. He is leaning against the couch and the yawning chasm of his magazine well is disturbingly vaginal.

“Stop it,” I say. My head is killing me.

“What if we robbed a bank? We wouldn’t have to kill anyone,” AR asks, a wheedling whine in his voice.

I jam a magazine home to shut him up.

“Oh,” he purrs, “You know I like it rough.”

 

5

“Prone or kneeling, you know I love it,” AR whispers.

“Quiet, I’m trying to aim.”

The trigger is like a wet tongue on my finger. AR grunts with pleasure every time I fire.

“Not many in the center ring,” AR says dryly.

“Shut up,” I whisper.

I put a fresh magazine in and AR groans loudly. I feel like everyone is watching me. Five more rounds, AR punching me lightly. Not much better.

A large hand settles on my shoulder and I twist around, pulling off my ear protection. He is a large man, tall and wide, he leans closer and blots out the sun.

“You need to relax,” he rumbles and then smiles. “You’re jerking the trigger; you need to just stroke it.”

“I think my optics are off,” I mumble.

He takes his huge hand off my shoulder and holds it out. “Let me try it out,” he suggests.

“I don’t know…” I begin.

“I can probably help.”

AR is giggling as I hand him over. I pray the man won’t hear him.

When he drops to one knee beside me, his scent envelopes me. Woodsy, manly, old leather and tobacco, faded smell of marijuana and sweat from his jacket.

“Oh my God,” AR says breathily. “I can feel his shoulders though my strap. So muscular.”

I glare at his barrel shroud.

“Why don’t you touch me like this?” AR asks as the man sights down his optics.

I put on my ear protection and raise my monocular to watch the target.

“Oh, God!” AR gulps as he fires. “Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!”

All in the 10-ring.

“OH, GOD!” the AR cries out one last time. Bullseye.

“I think the optics are fine,” he says, handing AR back to me, the rifle still warm from the afterglow. “Stroke the trigger, just stroke it.”

I can smell his spiced beard oil on the stock. It fills the cab of my truck the entire drive home.

 

6

“What about a post office?” AR asks as we drive around town doing errands. “Workplace violence old school style.”

I ignore him. I can’t stop thinking about the man at the range touching him, caressing his trigger, filling AR with his scent. I dreamed about him, fingers and triggers and flannel all twisting together. I had the first wet dream since I was a teenager, my no fap streak totally blown.

“So you’re just not talking to me now?” AR asks. I had leaned him against the truck window so he could see out.

“I don’t think you’re real,” I say, unsure.

I take a corner and he falls into my lap.

“What about now?” he asks.

“You humiliated me at the range!” I shout down at him.

“You humiliated yourself,” he says smugly. “Can’t even fire me correctly.”

“And he did?”

“Reminded me of what it felt like to be with a real man.”

I scream and swerve and clip a mailbox. He’s laughing at me. Laughing.

 

7

I wake up in the dark of my bedroom. My front door closes and I reach for AR-15 but he’s not there. I reach over the edge of the bed to see if he fell to the floor and nothing. I roll out of bed as quietly as I can and froze on the floor, listening, mouth open to hear better. The house is silent until the AC clicks and comes on. I get to my feet and pad silently into the hallway.

I search the house quickly, finding no one. I look out the front door, flipping on the porch light after a few minutes. AR is laying in the yard.

Outside I hiss, “What are you doing out here?”

He lies there in silence.

“Are you not going to answer me?” I demand.

I pick him up and shake him like an ugly child. “Where were you going?” I am shouting; porch lights begin coming on at the neighbors’ houses.

“Get back in this house!” I whisper angrily. I slam the front door behind me.

I bring him into bed to keep him from running off again, arms wrapped around him. As I finally begin to fall back to sleep, he says, “You can put it in my stock if you want to.”

 

8

“Open carry me,” he says in the grocery parking lot.

“No,” I say. “Everyone will see you.”

“I want them to see me. I’m not ashamed.”

I barely make it to the Dairy aisle before the store PA screams “Active Shooter! Active Shooter in the building!” and everyone runs out screaming.

The self-checkout line is wonderfully short.

 

9

“Take me to the gun range tomorrow,” he asks.

“No,” I say, “Stop it. You know what happened last time.”

“If I knew all it took was letting another guy fire me, I would have cheated on you years ago.”

I push my erection down into my sheath underwear and groan.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

“Yes, oh, God, yes,” I gasp.

“Pick out a fat one. I’ve always wanted to see a really fat one get it right in the tits.”

I line up on a 400-pounder, and open fire on the crowd.