Best Gay Erotica 2005 Page 18

  “What do you do when you’re not surfing?” I ask.

  “I’m a florist,” he tells me, grinning. I sense he grins the same way any time he tells this to another gay man. “Stereotypical, huh?”

  No. His physical charm to me is so completely original that the word touches me for only a second before it flies off.

  I could sit and talk for hours, but he informs me he’s starting work at 1 P.M. today and should be on his way.

  “You ever surf? I bet it’s not a Toronto kind of sport,” he comments, and my silent half-shake of the head indicates no. “Do you want to learn?”

  Yes.

  No.

  Not really.

  I’m scared of sharks.

  And the water.

  Anything to see you again.

  My eyes come out of a blur and I’m looking into his smiling eyes. I don’t know what I’ve said.

  “Right, then. I can’t tomorrow. So, Monday? Ten A.M. You’re willing to come out here again? I do all the time; it’s worth the trip. I’ll meet you near the public toilet and change rooms over there. I can bring you a board. A nice big flat steady beginner’s board.” He winks at me and walks off, that surfer walk again. If I ever had an Australian fantasy, this is it. If I didn’t, this is it.

  He arrives on time. I was early. I couldn’t stay away.

  The first lesson is on dry land. I thought we’d be in the water right away, paddling around, but instead we sit on the shore. He’s describing the waves to me, pointing out patterns and where you should paddle out, how you should ride across the whitecaps, never go in front of someone else, watch out for swimmers, not that they should be out in that area anyway. Is this information important? I’m having problems concentrating. When he lifts his left arm to point out to the surf, part of his chest pulls out from his body, like the fabric of a kite being stretched on a frame. It forms this sail bordering the hollow of his underarm, which I’m guessing he probably trims. The hair is neither bushy nor sparse. It’s a dark brown bloom, one of these new Australian flora I’m trying to learn the names of.

  “You’ll have the board attached to your leg anyway, never panic, it’s not so rough out there. You might not be able to stand up the first time, but we’ll see how it goes, first you can just try to get the motion lying flat, then kneeling. We won’t stay in too long today. You don’t have a wet suit. I don’t want you to get too cold. Or too burnt. Lotion?”

  “Uh, right,” I say. “Forgot.” I take the bottle from him, a waterproof variety and SPF36: He’s predicting that Canadians fry in the Aussie sun. I slather the lotion onto my legs and arms, chest and stomach, self-consciously, then neck and face. He dips his finger in a small container and reaches out and paints my nose.

  “Pink zinc. Gorgeous.”

  I hold out the lotion to him and can’t even get the words out but he grabs the bottle, squeezes, and efficiently rubs it over the parts of my back I can’t reach.

  More, please. All over. Lower. Higher. All around. That’s what I’m thinking, at least. I’d suggest forgetting about surfing, but if surfing is why I’m here, I’ll carry on.

  “Um, um…. You,” I comment. It sounds like an accusation.

  “Oh, I put mine on already. Let’s go.”

  I can’t even seem to carry the board properly, so I’m relieved when we get to the water’s edge. Then, instead of getting in the water, he makes me put the board flat on the sand.

  “Okay. Last lesson. You’ve got to learn how to pop up.”

  I look down at my board shorts. I didn’t tell him that I bought them especially for today, and I hope that he doesn’t notice. But I’m checking whether I’ve still got the half-erection from when he was rubbing me down. I could pop that up.

  He looks at me curiously, wondering what I’m doing. “You’ve got to be able to stand up in one clean motion. If you can’t do it on the land, it’ll be a lot harder in the water. You want to be able to do it without thinking.”

  I look at him, and the board, and the sand. “You want me to do this?”

  “Yep.” He seems serious.

  “In front of these people?”

  “In front of me.”

  “Uh, okay.” I lie down face first on the board, tense my legs, and then hop up and draw them underneath me. I end up with my hands in front of me as if I’m trying to catch a ball. He says it’s fine for a start. I look around. No one is watching. I do it again. And again. The fourth time, I lose my balance and fall over on my butt. He doesn’t laugh, just shrugs, and the slight rising and falling of his shoulders sets off small ripples in the muscles in his upper body. I forget my task, or my role as student, and just look at him. I must look like a fawning idiot.

  “Just a few more times then.”

  My first lesson is a minor success. The waves are small but steady. There aren’t so many people out in the water that I run into anyone. I mainly paddle around and try to catch the rhythm of the waves. I attempt to stand up, and fall over. Actually, numerous times, but I manage to do it once. The wave carries me in so slowly that I soon tumble into the water. But I am proud of myself.

  “Bend with your knees, not your waist,” I hear as I duck my head out of the water and swim toward my board. “Keep your weight over your feet. Crouch for control.”

  He paddles over to me.

  “Can I bend over with my waist after?” I ask hopefully. I’m not sure if he hears me.

  I’m tired, but I ask him if we can go to where it’s a bit rougher. I don’t want to surf. I want to watch him surf. “Just a few times.”

  He agrees. I paddle my board in the water, awkwardly, trying not to obstruct others, but wanting to remain out in the ocean, as close as I can, to watch him. The waves look far too easy for him but I marvel at how someone so tall can remain so upright. The sun above drapes small shadows on his long torso; his muscles shimmer like the sea below him. He catches one long wave and heads far off down to the east. I get the full view of his body. First his torso facing me as he catches the wave, then the side of his body as he picks up speed, and finally his long back as he surfs away from me. Every part of his form lustrous in motion, steely and strong, confidently traveling on his long, flat carriage.

  Even though I paddle in his direction, and he in mine, it takes a while to meet in the middle.

  “Enough?” he inquires.

  No. I could never get enough of you.

  We exit the water. “I’m exhausted,” I say, then add, “and thankful.”

  “Don’t mention it.” We’re in the men’s change room, and somehow we’re alone.

  “Hey, have you ever been back here at night?”

  He looks at me quizzically.

  “Or, you know, done it here, in the change rooms, or even…in the surf?”

  He takes his time in answering. “When I was younger, a few times, maybe. You know, it’s not comfortable at all. The sand gets everywhere, the salt water stings. Some of the beaches have pretty sharp rocks and you scrape your skin. Out here, there’s just sand, nothing to lean onto. It’s a bit boring. I know something much more comfortable.” He leans over me and blocks a shaft of sunlight that is coming at an angle through the doorway. Even his shadow feels good.

  His room. Spacious. Curtains drawn. Smatterings of dusk seeping through. The walls are white but clothed in shadows. His bed is covered in crisp white sheets. There is a huge bouquet of roses in a crystal vase in front of a mirror on a low set of drawers.

  “Do you always have roses in your room?”

  “I cannot tell a lie. I hoped you’d be back here today. They’re for you.”

  “Not daffodils or lilies? Or Australian natives?—not that I can remember the names of any of them.”

  “Well, you’re not an Australian native.” He takes me in his arms.

  Height. Did I confess how much I like tall men? Not all the time. In fact, I kind of like all sorts of men. But a tall man will make you swoon just because you have to look up. Then the blood tilts to
the back of your head. He leans over to kiss you. Wham. Hopefully he stops your fall.

  “I’m going to take a shower first.” His voice has some command in it. First roses. Now what? “You can relax in here.” He enters the bathroom, which opens directly onto the bedroom, and shuts the door.

  I sit on the edge of the bed at first and listen to the sounds of the taps and spray, the echoing timbre of the insides of bathrooms. I’m both exhausted and raring to go.

  When he comes out, he’s wrapped his midsection in a white towel. I grip his sheets in my hands so I don’t tackle him to rip it off.

  “Your turn.”

  I’m quicker than him. I let it all slide down the drain: the last remnants of the ocean and beach, the day’s lessons, the heat.

  I come out and he’s lying back with his head against the pillows, a long silhouette, his legs slightly parted and the space in between a long triangular arrowhead that I follow, dropping my towel on the floor and climbing on top of him. It’s like finding the ideal place on a beach and lying down, the give of the sand below your body, how it molds itself to you.

  We kiss and kiss, and then he leans forward, slowly easing my back down to the surface of the bed. I swing my legs out from under me until they wrap around his thighs, and then he is on top of me.

  “Let’s fuck,” he says, and even in those two short words there’s that Aussie accent that I love. Lube has appeared out of nowhere, wherever he keeps it—his arms were long enough to reach without my noticing. He squeezes some into his right palm and reaches behind him to smear it between his buttocks. I must look quizzical, and he reads my mind. “No need to warm me up, I’m an expert at this.”

  I can’t believe how still I’m managing to keep when my insides are waves crashing against rocks. There’s a speedboat in my head but I’m breathing out and in, shaking only slightly as he slides a condom onto my cock, which is as hard as it’s ever been. Unwavering.

  He straddles me, kneeling, and I can feel changes in pressure and texture as he lowers himself onto me in two short breaths. Then he starts to ride, slowly at first, up and down, his eyes closed tight and his head thrown back slightly, as if sensing a signal from a far horizon. His hands rest on the fronts of his thighs, every muscle in his body warming up, moving, joining into a rhythmic motion. He opens his eyes and stares into mine.

  I’m reluctant to look away from his long torso, the tops and sides of his thighs, but I hold his stare and see in it: pleasure, satisfaction, desire.

  He rides me and rides me, his torso twisting back and forth, side to side, balanced on top of me with a reckless knack for the sport, an instinct. Bouncing on a wave, he is surprising me with his intensity. The sight of him makes my mouth go dry just as the rest of my body is covering itself in sweat.

  I am about to ask him whether his legs are tired and if he’s okay but it strikes me that this is what he does: standing up, squatting, a position halfway between. These are surfing muscles he’s using.

  I am gasping now too, and as he lifts his body up, he squeezes his anus tighter against the shaft of my cock. On the downward cycle he grinds against my pelvis and I feel the head of my penis jostling against his inner sphincter. I think we’ve reached as far as we can go—can the elements get stronger than this? He leans forward, places his hands on my chest, and arches his back so my cock slides out of him. He whips off the condom, tosses it aside, and lies back. He’s already got a condom out and is working it onto his cock, which is gorgeous and erect. He leans forward, then pulls me into a position where I’m kneeling above his head.

  “Let’s warm you up.” I lose track of his progress with the condom and lube as I feel his hot tongue inside me, thrusting up into my anus. I have to grab my balls and tug so I don’t shoot, right then, all over his face. He rims me for ages, then grabs my hips in his hands and guides me down toward his cock. “I like the hair on your arsehole. It tastes…” he licks his lips, “…textural.”

  Then, without a chance to think about it, he’s inside me. I’m not used to being fucked in this position, but I like it. The best way to learn something is to watch someone who is good at it and try to do the same. I’m looking at his face, and at his torso pumping underneath me, and superimposed is the image of him, not moments before, being fucked in the same position I’m in now. My shoulders, hips, thighs are moving the way he moved. I think I’m getting the hang of it.

  Not for long, though. I’ve been excited too much, for too long. The wave forms, the white foam turning over onto itself. The curve of it rises, pulling everything from underneath it toward shore. My legs are getting too tired to hold me up. I’m only a beginner at this. I rest down on his cock, grinding, rubbing. My hands reach out to grab the handles of his chest. My cum sprays in all directions. I arch myself over him as he grabs his cock and pumps, a few decisive strokes. One of my hands still rests on his chest, the other is now next to his head. He turns his face, kisses my wrist, and groans. Salt from one ocean mixes with that of another.

  After we finish making love, we shower. Together this time. We squeeze into the shower cubicle—it is rounded actually, like a space capsule—and take turns soaping each other down. I get hard again, and take him in my mouth, my tongue and cheeks responding to his penis swelling with blood, softening, different degrees of firmness. We dry each other with big, comfortable, square white towels.

  We walk into the bedroom again and I face him. His skin holding that quality of just being toweled down.

  I tell him there is a square of his body I like. Not a small square. I stand in front of him and draw it in the air with both hands. I start between his pectorals, move my fingers outward in opposite directions about two inches above his nipples (the nipples are the best part, the angels in the corner, the whole way the painting is lit) and two inches past, then down the same distance, and back toward the middle of his abdomen. He is so tall and long and lean that this square shows not his whole belly but just the top part. So: the nipples, the line of his chest underneath, the division between right and left pectoral starting to soar, and then these rectangles, one on top of each other. I picture a hunky bricklayer putting them into place, this wall of stomach muscles. If I were to traverse it, I wouldn’t hop over; I’d gently ease the bricks out and replace them behind me as I entered.

  “This,” I say. “This makes a beautiful picture.”

  He laughs at me, a gentle laugh, and gives me a hug, strangely nonsexual, the same reaction you might get when you can’t help yourself and tell your woman-friend’s boyfriend how hot he is, and he’s cool about it and he even puts his arms out to you.

  He looks into my eyes, and I picture my perfect square as a photograph mounted on the wall of my apartment in Sydney, right in the entranceway so it would be the first thing you see when you come in.

  I drop by Brian’s shop before I leave Brisbane, and there he is, looking so different, an efficient florist in a cool room. I’m looking for a phone booth that he can change in, back into his surfer-boy persona. Or he could keep his Clark Kent flower-guy shtick: Either is fine with me.

  “I’d buy flowers from you, but I’d give them right back,” I say.

  And right there, in the middle of his store, he grabs me and pulls me into his tall frame, and into a kiss, a subtle, long, two-tongues-entwined kiss that doesn’t break, even when the tiny bell on the door chimes and a pretty, young woman walks in, breaking into a mischievous grin.

  “How ’bout I call you when I’m in Sydney next?” he says, and walks calmly behind the counter. I hear the conversation start and fade like the sea caught in a shell.

  “Brian, Lily got a promotion at work, I’d like the most beautiful bouquet of flowers….”

  And as I’m out the door, I’m surfing.

  Light offshore, blue skies, and a thirty-foot swell. I’m driving into the shore, and I’m on it without even a wait. I don’t know how big the thing is, but I know it’s the heaviest wave of my life and I’m gonna ride it. My largest tube t
o date.

  It spits as soon as I’m inside it and I can’t see a thing for the entire ride. The board is part of my body, I’d entered the zone long ago, and the long appendage beneath me is doing what I need it to do: holding steady, riding fast, keeping me upright, my knees supple and bent, my shoulders and arms sensitive to changes in the ocean beneath me, balancing me out.

  The whole time, I have my eyes closed, thinking, “I’m coming out. I’m coming out.” I’m thinking myself through the wave, envisioning myself exiting the barrel. And I’m making it. Riding the most powerful wave. Somewhere far below is sand and earth. But here, right in the middle of things, is me, balanced at the most perfect and unique place between the water and the sky.

  from My Name Is Rand

  Wayne Courtois

  It was 3:05 P.M. when I took the turnoff into Granger’s neighborhood. To the southeast lay the city, crowded and noisy, but you’d never know it from these quiet streets and small, well-kept homes. Each front yard had one or two trees. The lawns were uniformly clipped, free of fallen leaves or stray toys. They were white houses, mostly, including Granger’s, so square and bright in the afternoon sun that it seemed to hover a few feet off the ground.

  I pulled into the driveway, turned off my engine, and listened to it ticking as it cooled. It had been a long drive across the state, with not much to see and a lot to think about. Picturing myself at this very moment, about to meet Granger, ready to discover if I’d taken the right path. But readiness wasn’t something I’d packed in my small bag along with a change of clothes and tape recorder; at the moment it was such a foreign concept that I touched the ignition key, more than halfway inclined to slip into reverse, get away while I still could. Instead I stared at Granger’s screen door, and realized in a minute or so that he was standing there, his outline assembling slowly, a tall broad man wearing white, his face a grayish mystery.