You walk into the park accompanied by a chill wind that blows previously unseen autumn leaves across your path. A shiver runs down your spine. From outside, the strange and isolated park looked inviting … like someplace new you could explore. But after slipping through the gate, you realize it’s quiet … too quiet. There’s a sense of unease in the air. You turn to go when a voice calls out to you.
“Leaving? Why?”
You spin and turn about. Nothing is there: just the grass and trees and bushes and paths and small pond. Perhaps you imagined it but, if you did, that doesn’t explain how the voice returns, right in your ear, asking, “Shepherd: why are you leaving when you’ve just found your flock?”
You jump, spinning about but only see the inside of the wrought iron fence you just came through.
“Who’s there?” you shout.
“Who’s there?” the voice repeats. This time, you swear you can feel hot breath on the back of your neck.
Rather than spinning about again, you dash forward. Rattling against the bars, you slip through, onto the sidewalk, and halfway into the middle of the otherwise unoccupied street. Turning around, you see the park as it was: quiet and serene … waiting.
You don’t see anything but you can feel something. It’s as if there was a force, a judging and ominous presence, staring back at you from beyond the bars. Shame fills you, as you shake the sensation from your head. What are you running from? You’re young, strong, and have a good job as a stripper at a local bar. People envy you and love you. Probably someone with a jealous streak followed you and did some sort of voice- throwing thing to freak you out. It doesn’t matter. It’s just one more reason you want to get away from the world.
Your smart phone beeps.
The alarm you set to remind you when you had to get to work is going off. You blink, surprised. Checking it, you see that somehow its hours later than it should be. Nearly four-thirty, you have only a half hour to get to work. How could you have lost four hours in what felt like three minutes? You scowl and square your shoulders.
“Yeah? Well, it’ll take a lot more than a creepy park to freak me out,” you lie to thin air. You still can’t see anything, but you faintly get the impression that there is something there, laughing silently at your defiance. “Fine, then! Do your worst!” you shout.
Turning to cross the rest of the way to the far side of the street, you head towards work.
You suppress a shiver, though, as–just faintly–you think you hear a voice whisper, “Challenge: accepted, shepherd.”
The words you think you heard haunt you for hours. Even after you slipped into your tear-away blue jeans and put in your construction worker costume, you found you can’t clear the experience from your mind. But the boys in the bar don’t mind. You gyrate and show off your body, gathering fives, tens, and twenties in your pants. They’d pay you even if you were in a wheelchair, you know. You’re hung better than ninety-nine percent of them: fifteen inches, maybe sixteen, when you get fully hard. Fifteen inches and as thick as a Foster’s beer can meant that only the true size-freaks would dare take you on. You scared them but enjoyed it.
Slim, toned, and hung halfway to your knees, you’re the biggest man on stage and the best man in the room.
If only you could shake the words; if only you could figure out what the voice meant with the word “shepherd”. A chill ran across the stage as you went for the Full Monty and the next song started up. Goose- pimples stood out on your skin and you realize that there’s a feeling in the room … a familiar, haunting feeling. Somewhere, beyond the lights and hidden in the music, there’s something watching … watching as the cute, horny boys hoot and holler at your toned, handsome, hung body.