The Long Walk Back
A Fictional Story by Camwhore1.
He didn’t notice the riptide until it had him.
One second he was stroking easily, breathing side to side, and the next he was being dragged sideways and out with a force that made his stomach drop. He’d read about these. Stay calm, don’t panic, swim parallel. He tried. The current didn’t care. It pulled him along the rocky point that marked the north end of the beach, and no matter how hard he swam, he couldn’t get traction against it. He was being dragged past the swimming area, past the lifeguard flags, past everything familiar.
His heart was hammering. His arms were burning. He kept swimming, kept trying to angle back toward shore, and finally—finally—the grip of the current released him about a hundred meters past the rocks.
He was exhausted, but he could touch bottom now. Sort of. His feet scraped something hard and sharp. Rocks. The rocky shelf that ran along the north side of the beach. He tried to stand, lost his footing, got washed forward by a wave, and felt his swim shorts snag on something.
Hard. Unforgiving. The rock had teeth.
Another wave hit him from behind. He heard the fabric tear before he felt it—a loud, ugly ripping sound—and then the sudden, shocking coolness of open water against skin that had been covered. He grabbed for the remains, but the surf pulled them away. He caught a glimpse of blue material being dragged out into deeper water, gone before he could even curse.
Todd scrambled onto the rocks on all fours, coughing and spitting out saltwater, and looked down.
He was completely naked.
Not hurt. That was the miracle. Scraped here and there, maybe a bruise forming on his hip, but nothing broken, nothing bleeding badly. Just naked. Completely, utterly naked, sitting on a wet rock on the far side of the point, about a kilometer from where he’d left his towel, his phone, his clothes, his dignity.
He crouched there for a full minute, breathing hard, trying to think. The rocks stretched ahead of him, and beyond them, the beach curved around. He could see it—the long stretch of sand, the umbrellas, the clusters of people. His stuff was all the way at the other end—a full kilometer of public beach between him and his towel.
There was no other way back. The rocks were too sharp to climb over, and the water on this side was too rough. The only path was along the sand, through the crowd.
He took a breath. Then another.
Just do it. Just walk. What’s the worst that could happen?
He knew exactly what the worst could be. He’d always known. It was the reason he wore board shorts instead of briefs. The reason he hadn’t showered at the gym in years—the reason he’d never let a woman see him naked with the lights on.
His penis, fully soft and shriveled from the cold water, was barely visible—a nub. A little acorn of foreskin barely poking out from his pubic hair, maybe an inch long if you were being generous. His testicles were small too, pulled tight against his body from the cold, making the whole package look even more pathetic. Like a child’s. Like nothing at all.
He cupped his hands over himself and started walking.
—
The first group he passed was three women lounging on beach towels near the base of the rocks. They were in their mid-twenties, tanned, wearing bikinis that left very little to the imagination. One of them had her phone out, scrolling, and looked up as he approached.
Her eyes dropped to his hands. Then widened.
“Oh my God,” she said, loud enough for her friends to hear. “Jess. Jess. Look.”
The brunette next to her looked up. Her mouth fell open. Then she started laughing—a sharp, bright bark of surprise that carried across the sand.
“Is that—is he naked?”
“Hands over it,” the first one said. “He’s got his hands over it. Move them, move them—”
“I’m not moving them,” Todd said, walking faster, his face burning.
“Girl, he doesn’t need to move them,” the third one said, a redhead with sunglasses pushed up on her head. She was squinting directly at his crotch. “There’s nothing there. Look. His hands are flat. There’s nothing to cover.”
The brunette sat up, shielding her eyes. “Oh my God, she’s right. There’s literally nothing there. It’s like—it’s like a little button.”
“Smaller than my pinky,” the redhead said. She held up her pinky finger, wiggled it, and all three of them collapsed into laughter.
Todd kept walking. His hands were shaking. His face was on fire. But he kept walking.
“Wait!” The first one called after him. “Can we get a picture? Come on, just—”
He didn’t turn around. He heard the shutter sound of a phone camera behind him and knew she’d taken one anyway.
—
The beach was crowded. It was a Saturday in July, and the sand was packed with groups, families, couples, clusters of friends. He kept his head down and walked as fast as he could without running, his hands clamped over his crotch, his bare feet sinking into the hot sand.
He made it maybe two hundred meters before the next reaction.
A couple—he was maybe mid-thirties, she was about the same—were walking toward him. The woman saw him first. She stopped dead.
“Babe,” she said, tugging her boyfriend’s arm. “That guy’s naked.”
The boyfriend looked. His eyebrows went up. Then he looked closer at Todd’s cupped hands and started grinning.
“Holy shit, dude. Is that all you’ve got?”
Todd said nothing. Kept walking.
“No, seriously,” the guy called after him. “I thought you were covering up, but there’s nothing to cover. Babe, you seeing this?”
“I see it,” the woman said. She wasn’t looking away. She was staring openly, a half-smile on her face that was worse than the laughter. “That’s… that’s really small. Like, really small.”
“It’s basically a clitoris,” the guy said, and his girlfriend burst out laughing, covering her mouth with her hand.
Todd’s throat was tight. His eyes were stinging. Not from the salt water anymore.
—
A group of four guys was throwing a football near the waterline. They saw him coming. One of them pointed.
“Yo! Naked guy!”
They all stopped and watched him approach. Todd tried to walk around them, giving them a wide berth, but they spread out, blocking his path.
“Whoa, whoa, hold on,” the biggest one said. He was tall, muscular, wearing nothing but board shorts, and his package was clearly visible through the wet fabric—substantial, heavy. “What happened, man? Lose your shorts?”
“Riptide,” Todd said. “Rocks. I need to get to my towel.”
“Riptide got your shorts and left you with that?” Another one said, pointing at Todd’s hands. He was shorter, stocky, and grinning. “Bro, I’ve seen more meat on a chicken wing.”
“Let me see,” the big one said. “Come on, man, you’re not hiding anything. We can tell.”
“Yeah, we can literally see there’s nothing there,” the third one added. “Your hands are flat, bro. Flat.”
Todd stood there, frozen. His hands were trembling. He could feel the heat in his face, his chest, his neck. His skin was prickling all over.
The fourth one pulled out his phone. “I gotta get this.” He aimed the camera. “Do the reveal, man. Just drop your hands. Everyone can already tell.”
“Don’t,” Todd said.
“Bro, it’s not like you’ve got anything to be modest about. There’s nothing to show. That’s the point.”
They laughed. Not cruel exactly—but not kind either. The kind of laughter guys make when they’ve found something so absurd they can’t help themselves.
Todd dropped his hands.
He didn’t know why. Maybe because he was tired of pretending, maybe because he knew they were right—his hands weren’t hiding anything anyway. His penis was a tiny, shriveled nub, barely poking out of his pubic hair, the foreskin puckered around a pink head the size of a marble. His balls were tight and small, barely visible. He looked like a boy, not a man.
The silence lasted about half a second.
“WHAT—” the stocky one started, and then lost it. He doubled over laughing, hands on his knees. “Bro. Bro. That’s a baby dick. That’s a literal baby dick.”
“Oh my God,” the one with the phone said, laughing so hard the camera was shaking. “I got it. I got the whole thing. That’s—dude, my nipples are bigger than that.”
“Let me see, let me see—” The big one grabbed the phone and looked at the screen. “Holy shit. It looks like a thumb. No—smaller than a thumb. It looks like a belly button.”
“Is it cold?” the third one asked, still grinning. “Tell me that’s just shrinkage, bro. Tell me that’s not—”
“That’s not shrinkage,” the stocky one said, wiping his eyes. “I’ve been in cold water a thousand times. That’s just a small dick. That’s what that is. That’s a micro-dick.”
“Micro-dick!” the one with the phone repeated, delighted. “Bro, I’ve never actually seen one in real life. I thought those were just in memes.”
Todd picked up his hands and started walking again. They let him pass, but he could hear them behind him, still laughing, still looking at the phone.
“Send me that video, dude. I’m sending it to the group chat.”
“Already sent it. The boys are gonna die.”
—
He passed a group of women in their thirties sitting in beach chairs under an umbrella, drinking from Yeti cups. One of them spotted him and did a double-take.
“Girls.” She said it quietly, urgently, like she was spotting wildlife. “Naked guy. Two o’clock. Naked guy, and he is… oh, honey.”
They all turned. Five women, all in sunglasses, all looking directly at his crotch.
“Is that real?” one of them said.
“That’s real,” another confirmed. “That’s a real, actual, very small penis.”
“How small is that? Like, how small? Can you even—would that even—”
“No,” the first one said definitively. “No, it would not.”
They didn’t even try to be subtle. One of them held up her phone and took a photo. Another stood up from her chair and walked closer, studying him like a specimen.
“Excuse me,” she said, standing directly in his path. “Hi. Sorry. I just—I have to know. Is that it? Like, is that your actual size, or is it the cold water?”
Todd stopped. His jaw was clenched so tight his teeth ached. “It’s the cold water,” he said.
The woman looked down at his crotch, tilted her head, and looked back up. “Honey,” she said, with a gentle, devastating pity. “No, it’s not.”
One of her friends called out: “Take a picture with him!”
“Should I? Can I?” The woman turned to Todd. “Can I get a selfie? Please? My sister’s not going to believe this.”
He shook his head and walked around her.
“It’s not like you’d even see it in the photo!” one of them called after him, and they all cracked up.
He was halfway now—maybe five hundred meters to go. The sun was brutal on his bare shoulders and back. His feet were raw from the sand. And his crotch—his tiny, pathetic, baby crotch—was on full display for anyone who cared to look.
And everyone cared to look.
A teenage-looking couple—he reminded himself they were over twenty-one, they had to be—were sitting on a blanket. The girl saw him first, and her jaw dropped.
“Babe, babe, naked guy—”
Her boyfriend looked, squinted, and then his face split into a grin. “Oh, dude.”
“Is that—” the girl whispered, but loud enough for Todd to hear. “Babe, that’s so small. That’s like—hold on.” She held up her pinky, compared it to the distant figure of Todd’s crotch, and then looked at her boyfriend. “It’s smaller than my pinky.”
“It’s smaller than your nipple,” the boyfriend said, and they both started giggling.
“Take a picture,” the girl said. “Take a picture, I want to show my roommates.”
“Already on it.” The boyfriend held up his phone, and Todd heard the fake shutter sound twice, three times.
“Get one where I’m pointing at it,” the girl said, and she stood up, walked to within a few feet of Todd, held up her pinky finger next to his crotch, and smiled for the camera while her boyfriend took the shot.
“This is going on my story,” she announced. “With the pinky emoji.”
“Use the one with the magnifying glass,” the boyfriend suggested.
“No, use the one with the ruler,” the girl said. “The tiny ruler.”
They were still brainstorming emojis when Todd walked out of earshot.
—
A group of three women and two men stood near a cooler, drinking beer. They saw him coming, and the reaction was immediate—a ripple of shock, then amusement, then open, unfiltered commentary.
“Oh my God, he’s naked.”
“Why is he naked?”
“Who cares why—look at him.”
“Wait, is that—what am I looking at? Is that his dick?”
“That’s supposed to be his dick, yeah.”
“Are you sure? I thought that was like a mole or something.”
“No, that’s—it’s a dick. It’s just a really, really small one.”
“How small is that? Like, an inch?”
“Less. Barely. Look, it’s like a little cashew.”
“Smaller than a cashew. A peanut.”
“A cashew is generous. That’s a tic-tac.”
“An Altoid.”
“A BB.”
They were howling. One of the guys held up his beer bottle cap and showed it to the group. “Smaller than this. Look. That’s smaller than a bottle cap.”
“Take a picture, someone take a picture—”
“Wait, I want a selfie. I want a selfie with the small dick guy.”
A blonde woman in a red bikini jogged over to him, phone already up and in selfie mode. She stood next to him, angled the phone so his crotch was visible in the frame, and made an exaggerated surprised face.
“Say ‘tiny!'” she said, and took the photo before he could react.
“Got it,” she announced, walking back to her group. “I’m posting it right now. ‘Beach day got a little small today.’ Hashtag tiny dick problems. Hashtag micro penis. Hashtag—”
“Hashtag I’ve seen bigger clits,” one of the guys offered.
“THAT’S the one,” she said, typing furiously.
—
Todd was shaking. His whole body was shaking—not from cold, not from exertion, but from something deeper. His vision was blurry. He couldn’t tell if it was tears, sweat, or saltwater still in his eyes.
He kept walking.
A woman was sitting alone on a towel, reading a book. She looked up as he passed, and her eyes went straight to his crotch. She stared for a long moment, then looked up at his face.
“Sweetheart,” she said, with a calm, clinical sympathy that was somehow worse than all the laughter combined, “has anyone ever told you about surgery? There are procedures. For… that.”
She gestured vaguely at his crotch.
Todd walked faster.
—
Six hundred meters. Seven hundred. The beach was getting more crowded the closer he got to the main entrance, where his towel was. He was passing through the densest part now, and the reactions were overlapping, cascading, building on each other.
A group of five women in their mid-twenties, all in bikinis, all beautiful, all tanned and toned, were sprawled on a large blanket. They saw him and the reaction was like a chain reaction of shock and delight.
“OH, MY GOD.”
“WHAT THE FUCK.”
“IS THAT REAL?”
“LOOK AT HIS DICK.”
“THAT’S his dick?”
“That’s not a dick. That’s a belly button.”
“It’s an innie.”
They were screaming and actually screaming. One of them was rolling on the blanket, holding her stomach. Another had her phone out, recording video.
“Wait, wait—” A brunette with a ponytail stood up and walked toward him. She was holding her hand up, her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. She stood in front of Todd, held her fingers up next to his crotch, and looked back at her friends.
“Yeah,” she announced. “About an inch. Maybe less. Less than an inch.” She turned to Todd. “What are you, like, half an inch?”
Todd said nothing.
“She’s being generous,” one of her friends called. “That’s a quarter inch. That’s a centimeter.”
“Girl, my clit is bigger than that,” a blonde said, and the group erupted again.
“Selfie! Selfie!” Another one jumped up and ran over. She pressed herself against Todd’s side—her bikini-clad body against his naked skin—and held her phone up. “Smile!”
He didn’t smile. She took the photo anyway.
“I’m sending this to everyone,” she said. “Everyone I know. This is the smallest dick I’ve ever seen in my life, and I need witnesses.”
“Use the ruler filter!”
“Use the magnifying glass!”
“Use the microscope!”
—
Eight hundred meters. He was almost there. He could see the blue lifeguard chair in the distance. His towel was near there. He was so close.
But the crowd was thickest here, and he was the main attraction.
People were pointing. People were whispering. People were not-so-whispering. He heard fragments as he walked:
“—tiny, literally tiny—”
“—never seen one that small—”
“—like a little button—”
“—does it even work? Can you even have sex with that?”
“—my eight-year-old nephew has a bigger—”
“—it looks like a thumb, no, a fingertip—”
“—take a picture, take a picture—”
A guy walked past him going the other direction, did a double-take, and called out: “Hey, you know they make pumps for that, right? They make pumps? Might want to look into that, bro!”
A woman sitting with her friends shouted: “Or just get a dildo! A strap-on! Because that—” she pointed at his crotch, “—is not doing anything for anyone!”
Her friends were dying. One of them was crying; she was laughing so hard.
“Wait, wait, I have a comparison—” One of them pulled a tampon from her beach bag and held it up next to Todd’s crotch as he walked past. “Yep. Tampon’s bigger. The tampon is bigger, guys.”
“Get a Q-tip!”
“I’ve got a lip balm—”
“Hold on, I’ve got a grape—” She pulled a grape from a fruit container and held it up. “Smaller than a grape. His dick is smaller than a grape. That’s the smallest dick I’ve ever—”
“POST IT POST IT POST IT—”
—
He could see his towel. The blue striped towel, fifty meters away, with his bag next to it. He was almost there. He was almost—
“Oh, my GOD.”
Three women were standing directly in his path, blocking him. They were tall, all of them, and they were looking down at his crotch with expressions of genuine wonder.
“Excuse me,” one of them said. “I’m sorry, I just—I have to ask. Is that your actual penis?”
Todd swallowed. “Yes.”
“And that’s… that’s as big as it gets?”
“It’s cold,” he said. The same excuse. It was sounding more pathetic every time.
The woman looked at her friends. They looked at each other. One of them bit her lip. Another covered her mouth.
“Honey,” the woman said gently, “it’s seventy-eight degrees.”
One of her friends held up her phone. “Can I get a picture? My boyfriend is not going to believe this. He complains about being average, and I need to show him what actually small looks like.”
“Use him as a ruler,” the third one said. “Stand next to him. Put your hand down there for scale.”
The second woman did. She stood next to Todd, held her hand—palm flat, fingers together—over his crotch. Her hand completely covered it. Her palm completely covered it with room to spare.
“Yep,” she said, looking at the photo her friend took. “My hand is bigger than his entire dick. My palm. Not even my whole hand. My palm.”
“That’s going in the group chat,” the first one said.
“That’s going on Instagram.”
“That’s going on Pornhub.”
“Girl, you can’t put that on Pornhub.”
“Watch me.”
They moved aside, finally, still laughing, still looking at their phones. Todd walked the last thirty meters to his towel on unsteady legs, grabbed his bag, and wrapped his towel around his waist.
It was over.
Except it wasn’t. He could hear the laughter still rippling up and down the beach behind him. He could see the phones, the screens, the photos being shared, posted, sent. He could feel the eyes still on him, even through the towel.
He sat down on his towel and put his head in his hands. His phone was in his bag. He pulled it out. There were already messages—from people he didn’t even know were at the beach, people who’d gotten tagged, people who’d seen the posts.
“Dude, is that you? Someone just sent a pic to the group chat.”
“Bro. BRO. Is that your dick? Someone posted it.”
“My girlfriend just showed me a video of a naked guy on the beach with the smallest dick she’s ever seen. Please tell me that wasn’t you.”
He put the phone down.
Down the beach, he could still hear fragments of conversation drifting over the sand:
“—smallest dick I’ve ever—”
“—literally a micro penis—”
“—smaller than my pinky—”
“—couldn’t even feel that—”
“—it’s like a little button—”
“—poor guy, honestly—”
“—no, don’t feel bad, that’s funny—”
Todd sat on his towel, wrapped in the thin blue fabric, and stared at the ocean that had stripped him of everything.
The riptide had taken his shorts.
The beach had taken everything else.
The End.
*The opinions/views expressed in this story (and in any comments) are those of the author and do not represent this site. We support freedom of speech. This story has been submitted directly to this website for publication. Thanks for your submission.