Three pack

The first time I saw the three-pack white socks at the shopping club warehouse, I could only shake my head.

“How cheap,” I thought to myself. But guys were buying them by the shopping-cartful. They had just been introduced and heavily advertised and marketed as the hottest sports item for the young athlete. Since the shopping club had my age and zip code and all my demographic information, I'd been getting mailers and emails advertising the three-packs of white socks.

And while I wear white socks exclusively and have untold number of them, and while I'm a young athletic type and all my friends are young athletic types who happen to wear white socks, I just couldn't cave in and buy three-packs of white socks on the strength of endless mailers and emails. Or other forms of targeted marketing, for that matter. Had the world gone insane? Why three? In case you lost one?

“Idiots,” I thought to myself, looking incredulously at the handsome young guys who were showing each other their three-packs of white socks, and carefully reading the labeling, and in some cases saving each other's places so they could run back and get more three-packs before they got to the register.

How could they think they were getting a bargain? Sure, the third sock was a little less in the three pack than it would have been if you'd bought a separate pair, the way they priced it, but who wants a third sock? And some of the three-packs cost more than it would have cost to buy separate pairs, probably because of the brand or something. Was I missing something? Hello? Don't socks normally come in pairs? If I want odd numbers of socks, I'll just launder them. Most washers and dryers are mainly good for eating socks. I can generate odd numbers of socks with every laundry load. Don't try to sell me a three pack of socks. I guess it irritated me more than it should have, but hey, how stupid do things have to be before people notice?

But again, the check-out lines, the hundreds of mile-long check-out lines of the warehouse shopping club, were thronged with athletic young guys smiling and seeming pleased with themselves for buying the three-packs of white socks. Total strangers would smile at each other and compare their three-packs of white socks, and have enthusiastic conversations about them, and about giving them to their friends, and have animated wishful discussions about guys they'd like to give them to.

“Give me a break,” I could only think to myself. What a dull world it had become, where strong young men, good-looking young athletes with everything to live for, were excited about three-packs of white socks.

So it was a little embarrassing later on when my roommate Brian, just back from the gym, said he had a surprise for me, and from behind his back pulled out a three-pack of white socks and gave them to me.

“Dude, you need these socks!” he smiled, running his hand through his highlighted hair. “I thought of you the minute I got these.”

The moment called for lightness and gratitude, which I amazed myself by fabricating on the spot, although I was only irritated and actually thought my otherwise cool roommate was kind of stupid for falling for all the marketing hype, and thinking I would fall for it, too. But my actual performance was flawless:

“Oh, wow, thanks, Brian—cool! Can't wait to put'em on. So cool of you to get'em for me. I owe ya!” I smiled, appropriately turning the three-pack over and over and looking like I was really glad to get it.

I've never seen Brian look so excited and hopeful, although he seemed to be trying to contain himself. His eyes were brighter and he kind of flushed overall and actually stammered: “Oh man, you gonna p-put'em on? I wanna see'em on you!”

I was inwardly wondering what was wrong with Brian, but this was not the moment to show it.

“Yeah, right away, Brian. The socks I'm wearing I've had on since breakfast; I could use a change of socks by now.”

He looked grateful, almost sweaty with gratitude. He looked at me expectantly. “Well?” he said.

“Well what?” I smiled, still trying to keep up the lightness and gratitude, but feeling kind of pushed.

“So put'em on. C'mon, dude, I gotta see ya in'em.” He was being nice about it, but his eyes were pleading.

I tried maneuvering.

“Sure, but how come you don't have a three-pack of these white socks? It's nice of you to give me these, but don't you want a three-pack as well?” In fact, Brian and I didn't mind if we wore each other's socks, because we both have size 13 feet, so our socks fit each other. In fact, we've even complimented each other on how we look in white socks; we both happen to have the long second toe and we flatter each other about how nice our feet look in white socks. It's just a jock thing.

Brian looked a bit taken aback, but my question seemed to strike him as reasonable. “Yeah, well, I kept a three-pack for myself, too, and I'm definitely gonna put them on. I just thought you'd want to go first.”

Go first? Go first putting on socks? Like going first on a dare? First to jump off the high-dive? First to ask someone to dance? This was wacked. I just left.

“Yeah, I'll go first. But hey, wait,” I said, putting the threepack on the bookshelf nex to me, “I have to get back some DVD's I loaned Brad, because I have to return them before they close, or I get socked with late fees. Be right back. Sorry—” and I literally ran out the door. It bothered me that Brian looked so jilted—I'd never mean to upset him, he's totally cool (also totally hot, if you know what I mean) and we're more than compatible as roommates. But damn, all over socks? Maybe he was coming down with something. I'd apologize later and make sure things were cool again. But I kind of congratulated myself on how I thought up the DVD story out of thin air.

Besides, it wasn't a total lie. I had loaned some DVDs to Brad, and they were due today, but the guy at the DVD rental place was cool so it wouldn't be a problem. Besides, I really did want to see Brad, and badly. He was best buds with Brian, and might know what was going on.

Also, Brad might understand. He was pretty mainstream about most things, and he'd probably sympathize with Brian and get me to see Brian's urgency, which to me was totally unfathomable at this point. Brad was way into white socks, and also had the feet for them. I think he was probably the same size as Brian and I, and he even had the index toe, as Brian and I called it.

“You're such an idiot,” Brad told me, when I explained why I was there. He was wearing a shirt and shorts (he liked showing off his nice legs), with loafers over his white socks. “Don't you know what it means? It means Brian's totally hot for you, dude. You might as well have slapped him in the face. Guys give these to guys they're hot for, and it's more than that.”

“What do you mean more than that,” I asked Brad, more flummoxed than ever. Socks?

“Do you live on another planet?” Brad asked, looking at me like I was not understanding him, which I wasn't. “He's got a special thing for you 'cause he's hot for your feet, dude. You share socks sometimes, right?”

“RIght,” I said, feeling stupid by now but still confused.

“Do you realize that guys don't share socks? I mean, maybe in an emergency, but that's about it. He really wanted to see you in them, right? Face it, both of you have really sexy feet. I know good-looking feet when I see them, and your feet are definitely to die for, dude. Was he like begging and everything?”

“He practically put them on me,” I said, wondering how Brad had all this insight about Brian and about sharing socks and stuff like that..

“Dude, he's hot for your feet, do you see? He thinks your feet are hot. You walk out on him just as he gives you a gift that says he's hot for you. Dude, that's not cool.” Brad could see he wasn't getting through. I couldn't think of anything to say.

But I did think of a little bit of something to say. Not much, though. Although I did get rolling after a bit.

“I mean, I'm cool with him liking my feet and all,” I said. “I like his feet, too. In fact, I like all of him. We get along great, we each think each other's sexy, and I guess it is unusual for guys to share socks and to say how nice their feet look in them. So we're hot for each other. But so what about the socks? Who gives a you know what for a pair of socks? I've got socks. Dozens of them. So does he. This is the stupidest all-about-nothing I've ever heard of, and it's even stupider coming from you, with your brains. What do I care about a pair of socks, and what's more, what do I possibly care about a stupid three-pack of socks? Three? What does he care? What do you care? And why are the shopping clubs full of young guys buying three-packs of socks? I can't stand it anymore!”

“So you don't know about the three-pack?” Brad asked, grabbing onto that one fact as though it were the only thing I'd said that made sense.

“Only that I wish I had a cut of the business,” I said. “I could retire young. At the rate they're selling, guys'll be wearing them everywhere. Besides all the ads, guys will be like billboards walking around on two feet.”

“Three feet,” Brad corrected me.

I looked at him, irritated, not getting his joke or whatever it was.

“Excuse me a sec,” Brad said. “I need to change socks. I just bought a three-pack. You'll want to see this.”

It was all I could do to stand there and politely say nothing. I was solo bored by this subject. I wished at this point that I wore only argyle socks, or checkered socks, or executive support hose, or even German lederhosen at this point.

And it was indeed only a sec before Brad returned, carrying a threepack of socks and a shoe. Without a word, he sat down on the stylish little green cloth sofa he'd recently purchased, put the shoe on the floor, then took off his shoes and put them next to the other shoe. My eyes involuntarily went to his white-socked feet, so nice in their size and shape. Definitely a good look on him. He unwrapped the three socks from the threepack. He pulled the white socks he was wearing off his feet. As it usually does, it calmed me to see his bare feet. I like lots of kinds of male feet, but I couldn't help notice his index toes. Feet like that are really nice, and the sight of them always puts me in a better frame of mind, if you know what I mean.

“You may as well see this first here with me, since you're going to be seeing it everywhere,” Brad smiled, also calmer than before.

He crossed one leg and slipped the first white sock from the three-pack on. It fit like a glove, although since this was his foot, I should really say it fit like a sock. Something about white socks kind of highlights and smoothes out even the handsomest foot, sort of dresses it up in a sexy way. He smoothed his hands over the foot, pointing the foot this way and that and running his hands along it, up past the ankle to the shin, and lowered his leg, planting the handsome white-socked foot on the floor. Its barefoot brother seemed envious, I imagined, but now it was the barefoot brother's turn to get dressed up.

Brad crossed the other leg and fitted the second white sock over the bare foot, again smoothing his hands along the newly socked foot. I think Brad was hot about his own feet, and who wouldn't be, with feet like that. He was obviously quietly turned on by them, I could tell, the way he looked. It was cool that a guy with feet like that would point out that he liked my feet, I thought.

But then Brad lost me again.

“What are you doing?” I asked Brad. He was flushed and breathing a little rapidly, crossing both feet and pulling them up and putting the third sock on over both of them. Something about this seemed to be really turning him on. “Wait till you do this,” he said breathlessly, locking eyes with me for a moment. “You can't believe how good it feels.”

Then Brad gave a quick look to the instructions on the threepack wrapper without removing his hands from the third sock. It covered both feet because it stretched enough, but why!

I started to ask him. I had even formed the “w” of “why with my lips, but Brad said, “Not now!” He was still breathing hard, and he was flushed. So were both of his legs, I noticed. Then he said, with something like a subdued scream in his voice, “Almost! Almost!”

He was obviously now totally aroused. He was feverishly smoothing his hands over the third sock covering what looked to me like the lumpy combination of the two big handsome feet inside it. He was breathing hard and pouring off sweat, running his hands up over the wildly stretched third sock to where his ankles met and his shins parted ways. He put his hands on the outer sides of his knees, and with once sudden thrust, he forced his sweat-glistened knees together and kicked his sock-bound feet outward. “AAAAaaagggghhhhhh!!!!!” he screamed, but it was a scream of pleasure, as his white-stockinged feet landed on the floor in front of him with a loud thump.

Louder than I would have expected. I swallowed, amazed and now aroused. Because it was three feet that hit the floor. Three feet on three legs, sweat-glistened legs of Brad's. Brad with three sweat-glistened legs and three-white stockinged feet. Three big good-looking dressed-up white-stockinged feet. Brad with three legs, three feet. My mind was trying to get it, although my body already had. I realized I was breathing hard and that I had come in buckets inside my own shorts; I was still pulsing as the last ejaculations pumped. I wiped my forehead with my hand, stunned and amazed, catching my breath.

Brad was still breathing hard, catching his breath, his face, arms and legs shiny with sweat and a huge come spot spreading darkly through the fabric of his shorts. His shorts had ripped to shreds in the middle. There, a perfectly matched, sweating beautiful third leg now nestled between his sweating original two legs. It was a right leg, and its foot was a right foot, handsome in its third white sock.