Surfer Boys

by Neil Plakcy

  Chuck slithered into the pool. “Can I fuck you?”

  “Right here?” Jamal asked.

  Chuck pulled Jamal to him, easing his dick up Jamal’s ass. Jamal tensed up when it entered. “Just relax,” Chuck said.

  Chuck’s strong legs were scissored either side of Jamal’s torso. The surfer started to thrash about in the water, fucking Jamal rigorously. Jamal leaned forward against the pool wall, getting one of the best fucks of his life.

  The two of them grunted and moaned like gay porn actors. Jamal’s arms gripped the tiles as Chuck fucked him faster. Grunting. Fucking. Moans. Thick dick up black asshole, fingers tweaking nipples crazy. Fuck me. Fuck me. Take it. Lines that ran through Jamal’s dirty mind. It all grew louder. Dick snug to the root. Freckled balls banging.

  Chuck pulled out of Jamal’s ass, turned him around and kissed him. Under the water, Jamal grabbed Chuck’s dick and jerked him the last little bit, as Chuck came and came. Then Chuck began to jack off Jamal, white fingers juxtaposed nicely against a big dark dick.

  Jamal wanted to show him the face he made when he was close. He could feel it coming. Semen. Spunk. White fire. And then it happened. He shot forth in milky white spurts, sullied the pool with it. Chuck pushed away from Jamal with an easy movement, gliding backward like a paper sailboat on the water, caught in a daze. Cum snaked out of his dick. Jamal swam alongside him, turning to kiss him without reservation, embracing, floating in pool blue.

  IT’S ALL ABOUT THE WAY YOU THINK

  Ryan Field

  Stedman Sanders desperately wanted to be like the smooth, easy bottom guys he saw in porno flicks. What was their secret? He wanted to smile and spread his legs wide like they did, so hot guys with big cocks would moan and pant while they slid their dicks in and out of his ass with no difficulty at all. But more than that, he wanted to know what it felt like to climax with a huge erection buried deeply in his body.

  Stedman had always known he was a bottom; when he masturbated and fantasized about men, his back was always arched, his legs were in the air, and a strong imaginary guy was always nailing him to the bed while his tongue hung from the side of his mouth. He’d been with more men than he could even count by then, from his freshman English professor to a jock on the college football team.

  But the intense pain he had experienced the few times various men had tried to fuck him made him clench his fists and hold his breath. When they inserted the tips of their dicks, a sharp pain shot through his body that literally brought tears to his eyes. The one time a guy in the dorms actually went all the way inside him and started to buck, it felt as if Stedman had to go to the bathroom so bad he’d ruin the sheets. He made that guy stop, too: he jumped out of bed, put on his clothes, and left as quickly as he could. The poor guy sat up on his haunches, shrugged his shoulders, and stared at the red condom on his dick.

  He wanted this just as much as he wanted to feel comfortable around water. His problem with water wasn’t quite as extreme as his problem with anal sex. He didn’t think about swimming all the time; if he never set foot in a body of water again he could have lived a perfectly normal life. It’s just that when he looked out at the ocean near his parents’ summer house in Maine, his breathing relaxed and he smiled; he felt a sense of connection and peace that he never felt anywhere else. When he crossed a large bridge and looked down below at a river flowing gently beneath him, his body went limp and he had to grip the steering wheel and force himself to pay attention to the road instead of the water. All he wanted to do was sit on a rock and watch the currents slip by; and it was this love of water that made him want to conquer his fear.

  He decided that the only way to conquer both fears was to face them head-on. So as soon as he graduated from college, he and a friend from school, a red-haired lesbian who wore low-rise jeans and had a large, muffin-top stomach, rented a small condo for the summer in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. She got him a job at an art gallery her brother owned there, and told him that there were plenty of guys around who gave surfing lessons. He hoped there would be guys around who’d help him with his other problem, but he didn’t tell her—or anyone else—about that.

  Stedman had just turned twenty-one, a tall young man in tight low-rise jeans, his curly hair sandy blond and cut short, his caramel skin a shade too dark to be considered full Caucasian, with a bulge between his legs that always seemed to protrude no matter how carefully he’d packed it down.

  When he drove onto Mission Street for the first time, he had a sense that he was going to conquer his problems there. Things seemed different; he leaned forward and pressed his fingertips to his bottom lip. He drove past a stone cottage with a steep roof that was surrounded by a colorful English garden. Not far from the cottage he passed a mission-style structure with a terra-cotta roof that looked ancient. Each building, from private homes to retail establishments, seemed to take on a whimsical feeling: the colors were brighter and more vibrant than other places; people seemed to take creative chances with gardens and shrubbery. The sidewalks were stippled with casually dressed people walking dogs; signs outside the Inns and hotels read PETS WELCOME. When he stopped at the end of a street, a woman walking three Scotties smiled and nodded at him when she crossed. He smiled back and took a deep breath; you could smell the ocean in the fresh, salty breeze; it seeped into the car and welcomed you to Carmel without warning.

  The place his friend had rented for them wasn’t a small condo at all. He sat back and stared when he pulled up to a small wooden cottage at the edge of town, with a steep cedar shake roof that formed a tall, dramatic A-frame. It was surrounded by lofty redwood trees and there were no neighbors. When he stepped onto the wooden deck that surrounded the cottage, he stared at the oval-topped door. It looked as if it had been handmade in the middle ages, with large planks of dark pine that had aged to a shade of deep gray over the years. He searched the frame for a doorbell, and then he knocked three times. His friend shouted, “C’mon in. The door’s open.”

  When he leaned forward and opened the door, he said, “Sorry I knocked so hard. I couldn’t find the doorbell.”

  “Hey,” she shouted, “You finally made it. Don’t worry about knocking too loud here: electric doorbells and artificial flowers are against the law in Carmel.”

  The entire house couldn’t have been more than six hundred square feet. He crossed through the door and entered the main living space. The white ceiling was lower than he’d expected; the floors were covered with wide planks of burnt orange cedar. “This place is great,” he said. “I thought you’d rented some generic condo, with Berber rugs and popcorn ceilings. But this place looks like a dollhouse with modern furniture.” There were two black leather sofas facing each other in the living room; a square coffee table made of chrome and glass anchored the room between them.

  “It’s a little small,” she said, “but I’m hardly ever here, and you have the entire second-floor loft to yourself.” She was staring into a silver gilt mirror above the stone fireplace, running her fingers through bright red hair that was cut so short it looked as if she’d gone to a barber shop that morning. She worked full-time at a restaurant in town; she was already five minutes late and she didn’t have time to talk. But she did tell him that she’d met another woman the first week she’d arrived, and that she was spending most of her time at the other woman’s place. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “It just sort of happened unexpectedly.”

  Stedman smiled, crossed the room, and gave her a huge hug. “I’m glad you met someone, really. I’ll be fine.” They were friends from college who were sharing a house, not best friends who shared every intimate detail about their lives. She knew he didn’t like organic chemistry and that he loved chocolate, but she knew nothing about his fear of water or anal sex. And he wanted to keep it that way.

  She grabbed a denim jacket that had been hanging on the back of a sea grass parsons chair and crossed the room toward the front door. “I’ll be in and out. Have fun!”

 
Stedman went outside to get his luggage. But when he returned he couldn’t figure out how to get up to the loft. The first floor consisted of a living room, a kitchen-dining area, and a bathroom—but no staircase. He placed his luggage on the floor and put his hands on his hips, then he looked up toward the end of the house and saw a white ladder. He crossed the room, slowly climbed up the ladder, and found a second-floor loft where you could actually stand in the middle, with a large window at each end. There were more cedar plank floors, and the white ceiling rose to a point in the middle. He noticed a full-size bed at one end and a mirrored dresser at the other end. Stedman took a deep breath and inhaled more salt air; he smiled when a soft breeze passed through the front window and the sheer white curtains blew forward.

  The next day Stedman started working at the art gallery. But he couldn’t help frowning when he looked at the artwork: it had that flowery, cartoonish look, with bright pink or lime green frames, and bell-shaped, nude women lying on the edges of Victorian fainting couches sipping martinis. They called it pop art; Stedman’s taste ran more along the lines of the postmodernists. But he liked his new boss. He smiled a lot and wore baggy white shorts and flip-flops to work. He didn’t push hard selling, the pay was good, and Stedman only had to work twenty-five hours a week, which meant he could devote the rest of his time to conquering his fears.

  He decided to focus on his fear of water first. So he made an appointment with the first private surf instructor he contacted through the Yellow Pages, a guy with a deep, hoarse voice named Nick. He told Nick about his fear of water, and Nick promised Stedman he’d not only teach him everything there was to know about surfing, but also help him with his phobia.

  Stedman made the appointment for early on a Friday morning. Nick said, “Carmel has a long stretch of beach, from Fourth to Thirteenth Street. Since you’re from out of town I probably should just pick you up at your house rather than make a place to meet at the beach.”

  From the phone conversation, he pictured Nick as a daddy type in his midforties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a slight paunch. But when Nick pulled his white jeep into the driveway on Friday morning, Stedman’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Nick was not much older than he was. He had to catch his breath when Nick got out of the car wearing nothing but a pair of red board shorts. He had a thick head of blond, wavy hair, bright glue eyes, and muscular thighs covered with a blanket of blond fuzz. His chest muscles were broad and defined and covered with more blond hair. The red fabric pressed against his groin and outlined the head of his dick. Stedman was glad he’d decided to wear sunglasses that morning.

  His body relaxed the minute he shook Nick’s large, sturdy hand. But he barely spoke a word while they drove to the beach and Nick started explaining some basic details about surfing that included, “leashes, riptides, and billabongs.” Nick’s deep, hoarse voice spoke with such knowledge and authority Stedman never thought he’d manage to understand all the terms and rules for surfing; he actually felt a sharp pain across his forehead when he thought about getting into the water with a surfboard. He smiled and nodded yes a great deal as if he understood everything Nick was saying; all he wanted to do was ride small waves and step into the water without hyperventilating. Stedman didn’t unclench his fists until they arrived at the beach and Nick finally said, “Look, buddy, I know this is all a lot on the first day. So I chose the best board for a beginner, and we’re only going to concentrate on waves that I feel comfortable you can handle. I know what I’m doing; just trust me.”

  “Ah, well,” Stedman said. He looked through the windshield of the jeep and took a deep breath when he saw the magnificent waves rolling in from the sea. It occurred to him that he didn’t have much of a choice if he wanted to conquer his fear of the water.

  “You’ve come to the right place to face all of your fears,” Nick said. “The sand-bar wave at Carmel-by-the-sea is known to be reliable, fun, and perfect for all surfers.”

  Stedman smiled and opened the car door. When he lifted his legs to get out, he unconsciously reached down to smooth out his board shorts because they’d bunched up between his legs. All he kept thinking about was going into the water, and that breathless, doomed sensation he’d once experienced in a swimming pool when it had occurred to him he couldn’t touch bottom.

  When he had one leg out the door, a sharp pain stung the middle of his forehead and he felt dizzy; he decided to tell Nick that he was having second thoughts about surfing. But when he turned and opened his mouth to speak, he caught Nick staring at his smooth, dark legs. Nick’s lips were pursed together as if he were about to whistle, and he was rubbing his palms together. The moment Stedman saw this, Nick quickly turned to face the steering wheel and pulled the keys out of the ignition. But it was too late. Stedman had seen that hungry expression before on other men; he just smiled and got out of the jeep slowly, so Nick could stare at his ass, too.

  He signed up with Nick for four lessons a week. The first two pathetic weeks he didn’t even use a surfboard. Nick was all business and he focused on getting Stedman into the water, at least up to his chest, and brushing up on his swimming skills. And Stedman was too terrified of the water to even care if Nick wanted to get into his pants or not. Though he wasn’t a complete coward, and he loped into the water with his fists clenched and his heart pounding out of his chest without so much as a sigh, Nick didn’t push him beyond what he could handle. If Stedman said no to something, Nick focused on something else. They often discussed safety issues on days when Stedman was near panic: the importance of having a leash so the surfboard wouldn’t wash to shore after a wipeout; always going into the water with someone else, or with a group; and most important, if a surfer can’t actually swim in the water without his board (if it’s too rough), he shouldn’t go in at all.

  At the end of these first few sessions, even though he hadn’t actually ridden any waves yet, Stedman smiled and joked with Nick; a feeling of intense elation empowered him when he went home at night and realized the magnitude of what he was trying to accomplish by conquering this fear that had haunted him all his life.

  By the first week in July he was swimming into the ocean without hyperventilating, and that’s when Nick slowly began to introduce him to the surfboard. At first he clutched the board as if it were his lifeline, but as time passed and he grew to trust Nick completely, he began to understand that nothing bad would happen to him as long as Nick was there. What had been one of his worst nightmares only weeks earlier, soon became his passion. When he missed a wave and fell off the surfboard, he shook water out of his hair and laughed. Nick was always there, by his side, ready to catch him and keep him safe. When Nick spoke, Stedman stared at his face with his head tilted to the side, hanging on every word. Sometimes Stedman even fell off his board on purpose so that Nick could place his large hands around his waist and help him regain his balance when he got back on. Nick often placed his palm on the small of Stedman’s back to guide him through a rough situation. That’s when Stedman would arch his back and stroke Nick’s ego. “You’re so good at this. I’ll never be as good as you are, Nick.”

  Stedman went back to the little cottage each night exhausted. His leg muscles were sore, his arms ached, and his normally soft, caramel skin felt dry and tight. His sandy blond hair slowly began to turn a lighter shade of blond; it created a striking contrast with his naturally tan skin. At night he slept without stirring; in the morning, food tasted better in Carmel-by-the-sea. When it occurred to him that he was finally conquering his fear of water thanks to Nick, he went to work at the gallery with his head a little higher and his shoulders a little straighter. He approached the customers with a smile and a gentle voice; he started to sell at least one painting a day, and he formed some nice, casual friendships with people who worked in the shops around him. Even his friend, who by then had totally moved in with her new girlfriend, mentioned in passing that she’d never seen him looking so rested.

  If this had been a routine summertime excursion
for Stedman, half the guys in Carmel would have had their hands down his pants by the Fourth of July. They wouldn’t have fucked him; but they would have been able to take off his clothes and play around with his dick. And he wouldn’t have thought twice about sucking them off and tea-bagging them until his jaw ached. It was just that once Stedman slowly began to conquer his fear of water and his self-esteem grew stronger, strange things started to happen. He began to focus on perfecting his surfing skills instead of perfecting his cocksucking skills. He wanted Nick to be proud of all the work they’d been doing that summer; and he didn’t want to slack off and disappoint Nick by falling into old habits. He was doing what he had started out to do: conquer his fears…at least one of them anyway.

  Then on a warm afternoon in the middle of July, during a surf lesson with Nick, Stedman lost his footing. He dropped his surfboard and fell into the water. He wasn’t in very deep, just up to the top of his chest, and he knew he’d be fine. But when he fell over Nick’s eyes grew wide and he leaned forward with both hands to catch him; he wrapped his hands around Stedman’s small waist and pulled him back just as his face hit the water. When Stedman was standing, and holding his board again, Nick casually placed his palm on the small of Stedman’s back. Then Nick’s hand slipped down a little, beneath Stedman’s shorts, and his fingertips rested at the top of Stedman’s ass. Stedman closed his eyes and arched his back so that Nick could shove his hand all the way down his pants.

  Nick smiled, and then cupped Stedman’s ass hard. “Is this okay?”

  The beach wasn’t crowded that day, but they weren’t alone either. Stedman turned and stared into Nick’s deep-blue eyes. Until that moment when Nick squeezed his ass, he’d only suspected that Nick was interested; he hadn’t been completely sure. “It’s fine.”