IT'S A MANZ WORLD

HOT IN ARIZONA - Note: Most of my Manz World stories are fictionalized accounts of how the painting shown here came to be. However, some of the stories are rooted in truth.

It was early May when I received some disappointing news. It came to me just weeks before I would be graduating from college. That news, given to me in the form of a letter, was that an internship I had previous lined up had to be withdrawn because of a sudden lack of funding.

Desperate, I made an appointment to speak with my academic counselor, who was also the dean of admissions. Because of his position, I knew he had a lot of contacts throughout the academic world.

As it turned out, Dr. Tolson was the right guy for me to talk with. After hearing of my plight, he said he would make some inquiries. It was only a couple of days later that he called me and said that he had found a three-month internship that would meet my need but it would require me to move. At the time, I was living in the Washington, D.C. area where I shared an apartment with a fellow student. Dr. Tolson said the internship open to me would be in Phoenix, Arizona. Being young—I was only twenty-two at the time—I had never traveled west. Certainly not any further than the Mississippi River when once, as a teenager, I visited some relatives in St. Louis.

After hearing about the opening, I quickly got on the phone and made arrangements to travel to Arizona for the summer. Since housing was not provided, I had to find my own place to stay. Fortunately, because it was summer, there were a number of opportunities to rent a room in the area near Arizona State University in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix. As luck would have it, that rental was only a few miles from the hospital where I would be interning.

My graduation was on the last Saturday morning of the month of May. By that evening, I was packing my old Chevy Impala with everything I owned, which wasn’t much. I wanted that packing to be done by nightfall, since the start of my journey was to be very early the next morning. At around 6:00 a.m. on Sunday, I pointed my Chevy toward the west with a prayer that my ‘heavy Chevy’ would make it to Arizona without a breakdown. That prayer was said because I had been told that the mountains in Colorado would significantly challenge a car as old as mine.

It was on a late Tuesday afternoon, having covered approximately 2,300 miles in only three days, that I arrived in the suburban town of Tempe. With relief, I sent up another prayer of thanks that I had made it without any car trouble. Using a map of the area, I finally found the house where I would be renting the room. As I pulled into the driveway, I saw it was an older ranch-style home, one that was located in an older neighborhood of Tempe. After dragging my tired body out of the car, I walked to the front door where, after pressing the doorbell, a young man, looking to be about my age, opened the door. I immediately asked if he was the owner—Mr. Morgan—and he said, “No, he’s not here right now. Should be back soon.”

I told the young man my name and said I had arranged to rent a room in the house. With a slight smile, the young man said, “Oh, yeah, I was told you would be here this week. But wasn’t expecting today.”

After introducing himself—his name was Patrick, but everyone called him Pat—he invited me in. Even though it was still May, the heat that afternoon was substantial. Upon entering the house, and being very thirsty, I asked for a drink of water. Pat showed me to the kitchen and pointed to the refrigerator, where he said I would find cold water in a pitcher. As he handed me a glass, he said, “The water in the fridge is filtered.” He then warned me about not drinking water right from the tap. “It’s not the best tasting.”

That was one of several pointers Pat gave me over the next few days. One was to check my shoes before putting them on in the morning. He said lizards, insects, scorpions, even small snakes liked to curl up in a shoe over night. That was a clue that things would be different here than back east.

After satisfying my thirst, Pat showed me to the room where I would be staying. He then helped me bring in my luggage and other items. As we were making a final trip into the house, with both of us carrying a box, the owner arrived and introduced himself. Once inside the house, Mr. Morgan gave me a typewritten page to sign. That page listed the house rules as well as the amount of rent to be paid weekly. After signing the original, Mr. Morgan—he said to call him Dean—ran it through a copy machine and gave me the copy for my own records.

Being so tired, I went to bed early that night. I slept well and long, some twelve hours. Obviously, I was exhausted. However, in the middle of the night, I woke up with a need to use the toilet. It was probably due to all the water I’d been drinking that evening. Upon waking, as urgent as my need was, I immediately recognized how hot it was in the room. I also recognized how sweaty I was. And that the sheet I had been sleeping on was damp.

Arizona nights can be very hot. I well remember how hot is was one night when coming home from a party. It was 2:00 in the morning when, going by a bank, I saw the time/temperature sign reading 102 degrees. And it wasn’t unusual to see heat waves rising from the pavement at night.

Unfortunately, the house where I was staying had no air conditioning. However, there was a thing called a “swamp cooler” which sat on the roof of the house. It was an old system of cooling, started back in the 1920s, long before air conditioning was in general use. The device uses a fan to draw in hot, dry air then blow it over wet pads, which reduced he temperature through evaporation. Even though they called it a cooler I found that it was rather ineffective at keeping the house much under 80 degrees even at night.

My normal sleepwear is, well, it’s nothing. I sleep naked. I had for years, since I was a kid. That normally allows me a comfortable sleep. When I had roommates in the past, all of them knew I liked to sleep naked. Never had I found any objection to it. As one of my former roomies said, “As long as you’re not coming into my room naked, I’m okay with it.”

It was on that first night, when needing to use the bathroom down the hall from my bedroom, that I made my way there with nothing on my body. I made that trip quickly since, even at that early morning hour, I did not want to have anyone see me naked. Plus, my need to pee was quite urgent.

My pattern of a nude walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night was uninterrupted for about a week. But then one night I was caught by Pat. It actually happened early one morning when the sun was just peaking over the horizon, illuminating the hallway with a soft glow. It was as I was coming out of the bathroom, ready to walk to my room, that Pat came out of his room, obviously going to the bathroom for the same reason I did. Interestingly, he was naked, too. And, because the morning light made it possible, it was quite visible to me that he really needed to go. Even though he put his hand over his groin—which, by the way, really didn’t hide ‘things’ well—I could see how urgent his need to pee was.

After a quick glance, Pat passed by me, rushing into the bathroom without even closing the door. As I continued on to my room, I could easily hear a gushing sound, one that confirmed that Pat really did need to pee. Bad!

Several days passed without any acknowledgement from either Pat or myself of that naked encounter in the hallway. However, one evening, when Dean was out, Pat brought up the incident. We were in the kitchen, sitting at the dining table, finishing up our dinner.

Sitting across from me, Pat shyly said, “Uh, I think we need to talk about something.”

I looked at him with a puzzled facial expression and said, “Okay.”

“Uh… it’s about what happened the other morning when I was headed to the bathroom.”

Again, I said, “Okay.”

I could see it was difficult for him to continue. But he did. “Yeah. I mean, it’s about… about how I was… you know… about how we both were.”

I recognized how he was struggling with words. Especially the word ‘naked.’ So, I took over the conversation, saying, “You mean, when we saw each other naked in the hallway?”

He nodded in affirmation. Then said, “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

Immediately, Pat started apologizing, which I found strange since he wasn’t the only one naked at the time. My response was, “I don’t think you need to apologize. In fact, I don’t think either of us needs to apologize.”

I went on to tell him that nudity at night was a norm for me. In hearing that, Pat’s face eased a bit. He then said, “Well, that’s my preference was well.” He went on to say he’d never had a roommate until he moved to Arizona to go to school. “When at home, living with my parents, I always had my own bathroom. So there was no need to put on anything when there. Then, when I moved in with Dean, I knew he had his own bathroom so, if I needed to pee in the middle of the night, I didn’t think he would see me.”

Our conversation didn’t last much longer, at least not on the subject of sleeping naked. That’s because we both came to an understanding that neither of us had to be cautious, nor apologize, about a nude run to the bathroom in the middle of the night. However, as that subject closed, Pat brought up a new one. After a short pause, he leaned forward and asked, “What if I told you I liked to wear only my underwear in the house when it’s hot?”

At first, I wasn’t sure how I was to respond. So, for a brief moment, I didn’t. But, then, I said, “Are you asking if I would object to that?”

Pat nodded and said, “Yes.” He followed up with, “So would you object?”

Smiling, actually almost laughing, I said, “Hell, no. Why would I?”

“Well, that’s the way I prefer to be on these hot days. Even in the evening.” He then informed me that Dean was okay with him wearing his briefs as long as there weren’t others around. “By others he meant visitors to the house. Dean said he didn’t want any rumors going around that he was encouraging any… what he called ‘gay stuff.’”

“Gay stuff? You mean people would think wearing just your underwear around the house makes you seem gay?”

At that point, it was Pat laughing. “Yeah, I guess that’s what he’s afraid of. It does sound kinda stupid to think that, huh? But that’s why you haven’t seen me in just my whitey-tighties.” That was true. On hot days or evenings Pat would wear shorts. But that was all. No shirt. No socks. Just the shorts. So, even then I could tell he enjoyed being as naked as permitted.

I assured Pat that it was perfectly okay with me if he wore just his undies in the house.

Interestingly, Pat then proceeded to tell me that wearing his briefs wasn’t just to abate the heat. “It’s because I like wearing them in general. Not only are they really brief, which helps keep me cool, but they also…” Pat then lowered his voice as he continued. “They feel so good on me. I mean, they keep everything together… like supported. You know what I mean?”

By ‘everything’, I was assuming he meant everything between his legs. I responded with, “Yeah, I do know what you mean.”

In an almost begging voice, Pat said, “So, you’re okay with it?”

Again, with a smile, I said, “Sure, no problem.”

With that agreed, both of us got up from the table, took our dinner dishes to the dishwasher and racked them. After that Pat went to his room only to come out a few minutes later dressed only in his white briefs.

With only those briefs on, I saw a young man who was now revealing his very toned, athletic body in an amazingly manly manner: tall and muscled and handsome. In fact, Pat was so handsome and fit, he could have been a model in one of the male underwear catalogs. In addition, the style of undies he liked to wear allowed anyone viewing him know he was well endowed in all the right places.

While Pat never posed for me, I remembered well what I saw during those three very hot months in Arizona. The many afternoons and evenings of seeing Pat in just those whitey-tighties burned a very strong image into my brain. And from that memory, I finally painted a portrait of him, the one you see here.