by A. J. Lucas
I hated people telling me to relax; I was never relaxed. A new, incredibly hot surfer bro who was currently touching me like I hadn’t been touched in months sure wasn’t going to make me more relaxed. It made me tense up, everywhere; I felt myself getting hard against the inside of my swim trunks and hoped the children running around nearby didn’t know what was going on.
Felix’s hands, too, stopped right above the waistband of my shorts. I found myself wishing he’d make the first move, would let me know for once and for all that he wasn’t just taking pity on the kid he’d seen crying but was in fact interested in me. But he didn’t.
After he finished rubbing sunscreen on my skin, he tied his hair back with a bandana from his knapsack and laid down on his towel. He flipped over onto his chest, sunscreened back to the sky, and faced me. I did the same, so our faces were now a foot away from each other. I had my sunglasses on again, so I could search his face, focusing on his lips and his perfectly angular nose and his beard all without him seeing where I was looking. I wanted to close the distance, to kiss him.
“Hi there,” he said.
“Hi,” I answered.
“So, tell me about yourself,” he said. “What was it like growing up here?”
I considered. “Fun, for the most part. It’s a weird little town, you know that. Part of LA, but not really. It has its own character.”
“Lots of characters,” he said.
“My parents and I didn’t really get along,” I said, surprised by how open I was being with someone I barely knew. There was just something about his smile that made me feel safe, like I could tell him anything and he wouldn’t judge me.
“Because you’re gay?”
We hadn’t said it out loud yet. Some small part in the back of my brain had wondered if maybe he was straight and didn’t realize who he was talking to, so I was grateful he’d just casually dropped it into the conversation like it wasn’t a big deal. Because, between the two of us, it wasn’t. Shouldn’t be. Wouldn’t be, if this continued.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m an only child, and my dad wanted a manly-man for a son. Didn’t really get it.”
“He got a girly-man instead?” Felix asked in what I assumed was supposed to be a Schwarzenegger impression.
“Well, I’m not girly,” I protested, but Felix cut me off.
“I know,” he said. “Just a joke. You’re somewhere in between.” A beat, and then: “I like that.”
“How about you?” I countered. “Do your parents support you being gay?”
“My parents died when I was a teenager,” he said evenly. “Car accident.”
I felt my stomach drop at the very thought of death. The therapist I’d seen back at college for three meetings said she thought I maybe was developing PTSD. She was probably right. I hadn’t gone back after that.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, my brow furrowed behind my sunglasses.
“Oh, it’s okay,” he said. “That was a long time ago.”
“A long time?” I asked. “How old are you?”
He smiled. “How old do you think I am?”
“Oh god, you’re not in your forties or something, are you?”
He looked hurt. “Do I look like I’m in my forties?! I’m 26, thank you very much.”
“Oh good,” I said. He didn’t say anything for a second, seeming to wait for something, so I added, “I’m only 21.”
“That’s cool,” he said. “So are you still in school, then?”
“Yeah,” I lied, and immediately wished I hadn’t. If this was going to become... something... that was just one more thing I’d have to clear up later, one more thing to weigh on my conscience.
“What are you going to school for?”
“Film,” I said. “My parents are both producers and I want to get into the family business.”
“Great, just what Hollywood needs... more nepotism!” he said, and I felt stung, felt like I needed to defend myself. Seeing my reaction, he added, “Hey, I’m just teasing. I think that’s super cool.”
We were quiet for a few minutes, and I felt a bit woozy in the sunlight, lost in the heady rush of what might be something new, something to get my mind off of Jason. Felix’s eyes started to drift closed. I had hoped something like this might happen when I came back to Venice, but I had hardly dared to hope for it.
Then a golden retriever dashed over, licked Felix’s face, and ran back to a pack of squealing kids. I laughed at the look of shock on his face as he sat up quickly.
“Wow!” he said. “I guess I’m irresistible.” I sat up too, not wanting to have to look up at him from what might be an unflattering angle.
“I agree with that dog,” I said before I could help myself, mentally kicking myself for how lame the line was.
He didn’t reply, just fished in his knapsack for something, looking satisfied with himself. Finding what he was looking for, he pulled out a metal water bottle.
“Want some rum?” he asked.
Rum did sound good, like it might loosen my inhibitions. Being touched by Felix wouldn’t help me relax, but a sip of rum sure might. It wasn’t even noon yet, but fuck it. I wanted to see where this day would lead.
He held out the bottle and I took it. I poured a bit into the cap and tossed it back, immediately liking the sensation as it hit my throat. I handed it back to him and he looked at me strangely for a second, judging something, before taking a deep swig straight from the bottle. Again I was struck by how unselfconscious he was, how he was just being himself without seeming to worry how I was receiving him.
“Well, hey, if it’s gonna be like that,” I said, holding out my hand. He grinned. He had a way of smiling with his mouth slightly open, showing off a tantalizing glimpse of a wet, pink tongue in his mouth between two rows of perfect teeth. I found it extremely erotic.
He handed me the rum back and I, too, took a deep swig. I felt the effects almost immediately; all I’d eaten that morning were eggs, toast, and a bit of iced coffee, and then I’d been laying out in the sun. I felt lightheaded, but in a way that I liked, not a medically-dangerous kind of way. The kind of lightheaded that felt full of possibility.
Felix stared out over the ocean, where the waves were crashing over the rocks off the beach. When the tide was far out, people climbed up on the rocks to fish, but the tide was in now, meaning the waves were breaking high. I wondered what he was thinking; it was probably a dangerous place to surf, cause of all the rocks, but I could tell in the way he was looking at the water that he wanted to at least go swimming.
“Hey,” he said suddenly, turning back to me. “Would you wanna go swimming?”
“Absolutely,” I said without hesitation.
“Awesome,” he said. “I want to put on my wetsuit, though. There are changing rooms over that way...” — he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, where there was a low, squat stone building — “... do you want to grab our stuff and come with me?”
I felt my cock throb in my shorts. Was he asking what I thought he was asking?
I felt the rum buzzing in my brain, giving me the courage to ask what I normally wouldn’t have. “Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”
He cocked an eyebrow suggestively. “And what might that be, Foster?”
“Well, y’know,” I said, suddenly embarrassed, sure I misread the situation. “When I was little, my parents wouldn’t let me use those changing rooms, cause they said men would... y’know... It’s Muscle Beach, and...”
Felix grabbed his towel as he stood up and tossed his knapsack over his shoulder. He started to walk away, leaving me sitting there in shocked silence; he got a few paces away, and then turned back over his shoulder.
“That’s exactly what I was asking,” he said with a grin, and then he turned and kept walking in the direction of the changing rooms.
4 - FELIX
I didn’t look back once while I walked over to the changing rooms, feeling my entire body humming with electricity at the thought of
what was about to happen. He would either follow me or he wouldn’t, and that would be that. It’s not that I didn’t care what happened either way — I desperately, desperately wanted him to follow me. I was just certain I’d been as charming and honest as I could have been about who I was and what I wanted, and at that point, it was up to him whether or not he wanted the same thing.
The changing rooms were laid out around a small, low stone building, with privacy walls set up in a perimeter so you couldn’t see people entering and leaving from the beach. There were four rooms on each side, marked as gender-neutral. They were kind of grimy, but I thought that was kind of thrilling, too; we queers had a long history of taking it where we could get it.
The rooms on the side closest to where we’d been sunbathing were all occupied, so I walked around the corner of the building to the side that faced the path. Luckily, they were all open. I ducked into one that was surprisingly clean, pulling the door behind me but not closing it all the way, so I could see anyone who might be coming. I tossed my knapsack on the bench that lined the far wall, then took up my position looking for Foster.
The first person around the corner was a middle-aged woman, so I shut the door tighter so she would see there was someone in here and wouldn’t try to open it. I heard the door to the next room slam shut, so I opened mine back up.
And there he was, standing uncertainly against the privacy wall, looking around. He hadn’t put his tank-top back on, so I could see his chest and torso more clearly for the first time, no longer hunched over on his towel. He looked like he was very recently a gym rat who had fallen out of practice, so he was ever-so-slightly soft in places. He also looked like he used to shave his chest but had recently stopped, so he had short, fine hair leading down to a healthy trail below his navel. In other words: he was exactly what I liked. Whereas the burly guy in my bed this morning had brought out my submissive side, Foster was exactly the kind of guy I usually went for, so I could be more dominant.
I felt my dick twitch in my shorts.
“Foster,” I called softly, opening the door, and his head swung around to see where the noise was coming from. When we locked eyes, he smiled nervously, and with a quick jerk of my head, I motioned for him to come over.
He walked over to the door, making sure no one was watching him. I opened it wide enough to let him in without being seen from outside by anyone who might be looking. Then, when he had stepped into the room, I shut the door, put my hand around the back of his neck, pushed him up against the wall, and kissed him deeply.
I felt him tense up at first, but as I pressed my mouth against his, he loosened up, moaning softly. The sound drove me wild. I wound my fingers into the hair at the top of his head, keeping him in place while I kissed him. I slipped my tongue between his lips hungrily. His mouth was surprisingly warm; whereas I thought I’d felt heat radiating off of him in the coffee shop, I definitely did now.
I pulled back. He’d been kissing with his eyes closed, but they fluttered open now. He looked at me, breathing hard.
“Is this okay?” I asked.
He looked amused and sheepish. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Very okay.” This time, he went for the kiss, and I let him come up off the wall and flip around so that he was the one pressing me into the door. He was a good kisser, almost as ravenous as I was. I felt his hard-on in his shorts, pressing against my leg, and it made me growl against his kiss involuntarily.
His hands fumbled at my waist, trying to undo my shorts. Nope. My turn first. I pushed him backwards and he stumbled, off-balance; I caught him before he tripped and guided him, gently, until he was sitting on the bench next to my knapsack.
He was breathing hard still, as I’m sure I was too. He looked at me, a question on his lips, but before he could say anything, I kissed him again, and then I knelt down and slid down his swim trunks.
His cock sprang free, and I couldn’t help but gasp. It was long and thick, a good seven inches or more, curving slightly downwards; I had no idea how it hadn’t been dangling out of the bottom of the short shorts he’d been wearing. His balls were tight and firm, and they fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. I met his eyes, which seemed appreciative of my surprise, and said, “Damn, Foster.”
“You like?” he said, and added, “Can I see yours?”
I stood up and pulled down my shorts, and my own dick stood at attention, jutting out of a thick tangle of hair. I was thick, too, but a little smaller than Foster’s in length. Whereas his had a downward curve, mine bent slightly upwards. His was perfect for sucking and would slide down my throat perfectly in a moment; mine was good for topping, bending at the perfect angle to give a good pounding in all the right places. Hopefully we’d get to that, soon, too.
“Wow,” he breathed.
I knelt back down and took him deep into my mouth, and his hips bucked upwards, sliding down my throat exactly as I’d hoped he would. He tasted good; he smelled slightly sweaty, as we’d just spent a while in the sun, but it wasn’t unpleasant, just masculine and raw.
I looked up at him while I bobbed up and down on his shaft; at first, we kept eye contact, his face contorted with pleasure as he watched me, but as I picked up speed, his head lolled back and his eyes closed. I ran my hand up his torso, feeling the fine hairs under my palm, and he shivered.
While I sucked, I stroked myself with my other hand, matching the same rhythm. It felt incredible, especially after this morning’s disappointment.
I needed this.
“Fuck, Felix,” he breathed.
I could feel his balls tightening, and I didn’t want him to cum yet, so I stopped sucking and sat down next to him on the bench, stroking him slowly while we kissed again. His tongue probed my mouth, tasting himself, and his hand crept into my lap and gripped my cock. I breathed into him; his grip was tight, and my cock got harder and harder as he slid his hand up and down. My entire body felt alive, every nerve ending firing.
“Foster...” I said, pulling back from the kiss. He looked at me, eyes wide. “...you’re really fucking hot,” I finished, and I kissed him again, harder this time, our lips swollen and pressing together, needing each other. That line always worked, but I meant it now more than ever before in my life.
I lost track of time, sitting there next to him in the small changing room on Venice Beach, conscious only of the waves of pleasure coming from my cock and the intimate feel of his stiffness in my hand. After what might have been a few minutes or an hour, I became aware of a buzzing noise coming from the bench next to me.
My phone was ringing inside my knapsack.
I ignored it the first time, choosing instead to rub Foster’s precum over the head of his dick. He shuddered and put his hand on top of mine, slowing me down. He was sensitive. I liked that. I could have fun with that. I liked teasing him, making the sensation more than he could bear.
When it rang a second time, Foster asked, “Do you need to answer that?”
I shook my head and kissed him deeply before answering, “Definitely not. No idea who it could be.”
My phone rang a third time. I sighed and turned away from the gorgeous guy sitting next to me to root around in my bag. If it was important enough to call three times, maybe it was something I needed to answer.
“Fuck,” I swore when I saw the notification. Harrison Would Like to Video Chat. And the clock said it was 12:30! I’d completely forgotten I was supposed to meet up with Harrison!
I positioned myself in the camera, making sure Foster wasn’t visible, smoothed down my hair, and swiped to launch the chat.
“Heyyyy,” I said apologetically.
Harrison was standing under the Venice sign, exactly where we said we’d meet up. He looked pissed. “Hey?” he mocked. “Where are you, man?” He leaned in and peered at the phone. “Why are you so sweaty?”
I thought quickly. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I lost track of time! I got here early and I’ve been laying out in the sun, and it all went to my head. I’m in the changing
rooms now for some shade and so I can put on my wetsuit to go for a swim… Meet me here? I’ll drop a pin.”
His expression softened. “You’d better be sorry,” he said. “Yeah, sure, I’ll see you in a few.”
He ended the chat and I stood up, pulling up my shorts. I quickly tapped at my phone and sent Harrison a message with our location. My balls throbbed painfully, begging me for the release I couldn’t yet give them.
Foster was still sitting on the bench, looking at me with an expression of hurt and confusion. “Who was that?” he asked. I noticed he’d gone soft.
“C’mon, get dressed,” I said, tossing him his trunks from where they lay in the middle of the floor. “I completely forgot I was supposed to meet my best friend.”
“Oh, so… you want me to…”
“I want you to come with me!” I said. I walked over and bent down to where he was sitting, kissing him deeply again. “Of course I want you to come with me. I’m not done with you yet.” There was the briefest instant that seemed to last forever, where I was sure I had lost him and he was about to walk out of the door and out of my life just like the guy from last night, but then Foster smiled, and I knew I still had him.
“Okay,” he said. He pulled on his swimsuit and slipped the tank top back over his head. It tousled his hair even more in a way I found adorable and irresistible. I wanted to be running my hands through his hair again, gripping and guiding his head, and I was mad at myself that my own forgetfulness had interrupted us before we could finish together.
“Can you help me, actually?” I said, pulling my wetsuit out of my knapsack. I loved to surf, but those things are a bitch to put on by yourself. I stepped out of my shorts again, letting Foster’s wandering hand give my now-soft dick a stroke before I said, “No, that’s not what I meant. Can you help me get into this thing?”
I slid the wetsuit over one leg and then the other, and then peeled it up my body, like trying to re-cover a banana. I had to swivel my hips and shove my hand down the sides to get it to come up over my sweaty skin, and I had to be extra careful not to smash my balls as it came up over my groin. Foster helped me put one arm into a sleeve and then the other, and he zipped the suit up the back.
