FOREST, NAKED as a jaybird except for his white socks, started a meeting that would not go as planned. The man on the screen said, “Hi,” and Forest froze, staring. It was not that the man had a face that answered all Forest’s prayers. Maybe late fortyish, sculpted cheekbones, silver hair, a faint salt-and-pepper scruff, a smile that showed teeth just off-white enough not to be fake. It was not that his body was ripped without being muscle bound. With one look, Forest, himself the owner of a gym, imagined the guy telling stories about weight racks he had known and loved. And Forest was not staring because the man was rather endowed. (And if you believe that last sentence, fantasy may not be your genre.) “Calling the meeting to order” is what Forest termed his camming. Since the January departure of Ray, his ghoul of an ex-boyfriend (more on him later), he had had too many of these sessions on his favorite video camming site, LuckoftheDraw.com. On screen, he discovered that everyone looked Undead. If you were going to be hideous no matter what, resistance was futile. But LuckoftheDraw.com notched up the vanity stakes. Only a few souls showed faces, and most hardly showed torsos. It was a parade of the same body part—varied by guys who fell asleep, left the room and forgot the camera was on, never showed up, were behind the wheel on the highway, or were plagued by weird mechanical sounds in the background. They all faced a similar issue, though many ignored it. How do you look impressive enough for someone to pause, but not so contrived as to look desperate? Forest’s solution was to buy a fancy chair because everyone knows how much furniture increases sexiness. But, if nothing else, the chair, packed with buttons and levers he had not yet mastered, let him off the hook for not replacing the rest of the furniture now cluttering his apartment like tribbles. Forest had had a long day at his gym. His highlight was introducing a young trans man to the fitness center. As Forest knew well, the fitness industry had a lot to answer for in its support of toxic gender roles, to say nothing of body images. He was determined that his gym, Forest’s Fitness and Pool, would go against the horde of model-thin instructors, ripped men showing off their pecs and six-packs, and yogis in pants that cost more than a week’s groceries. The trans man had had bad experiences at other gyms, especially around bathrooms. Forest stressed that all bathrooms at his gym were gender neutral, that the man should feel free to use the men’s showers, and that if he detected even the faintest hint of transphobia from anyone, to come straight to Forest, who would handle it. He hoped that he would see the young man again and prayed that he would like Forest’s gym. Every day, Forest had a similar experience of helping people who had worked up the courage, in spite of past bad experiences, to try his gym. That took guts, and Forest did whatever he could to make them welcome. But he had to admit that, while such work was rewarding, it was also tiring, and it left him feeling up to not much more than a mellow evening in front of the camera. But nothing could have prepared him for this stunning man on screen, who sported a beautiful rich tan—except when he didn’t. Even the rise and fall of his nipples as he breathed seemed to alter his skin color, which was always turning into something else. Transfixed, Forest watched as if he were gazing on something scary and forbidden, like RuPaul hosting The 700 Club. Was this new cosplay that he had missed? Was it a trend in tattoos? Whatever it was, the guy’s skin gave off an aura of greenness without actually being green. It was green-adjacent, green beyond your field of vision, more something you sensed than something you saw. Unsettling, but also exciting in a sort of kinky way. Would “Greenish” now have to be slotted on gay porn sites somewhere between “Gangbangs” and “Gyms?”