"Shit," Gabe exclaimed, as he shucked his athletic T, slithered down the ladder of the lifeguard stand, raced to the water, and dove into the breakers. When had the little fuck gone into the water? ran through his mind as he knifed through the ocean toward the flailing arms.
He couldn't watch the guy all day. Or, he certainly could have, but he wouldn't be doing his job if he did—and he'd pretty obviously be showing his interest.
The young guy had come with a family in the early afternoon. Gabe didn't know if they were Jewish or Arab, but what he did know was that they all were strikingly good looking. Well, except for the ones who appeared to be granddad and grandma, but granddad wasn't too bad looking. A little chunky, but more solid than fat, and with a prodigious bush of salt and pepper hair on his chest. Grandma was short and rotund, but ever smiling, and even with her, Gabe could tell there had been beauty passed on from there. The father was imposing and the mother looked like a model. So did the rest of the brood—three young men and a young woman, who was so obviously the pride of the family that there always was one senior member of the family or other nearby, ever watchful.
But even though she was a raven-haired beauty with a great figure, the daughter wasn't the one who had held Gabe's attention. It was the middle son. The older one, though handsome, was swarthy and looked world wise. Too old for Gabe, for certain—and wary and no evidence that he was approachable. He probably was Gabe's age, but that definitely made him too old for Gabe. Gabe liked them fresh and young, and in his role as a lifeguard on the Ocean City ten-mile stretch of beach, he pretty much had his pick of the fresh ones.
Gabe didn't absolutely have to be the first, but he wanted to be near enough and got a high out of initiating. He did want them willing, though—certainly at first and reluctant only when they realized what they faced. Eventually yielding and then going with the rhythm.
The younger son was much too young. Early teens, probably, but he was beautiful, with a berry-brown, lithe body; a mop of dark curls; a generous, smiling mouth; and stark-blue eyes. In maybe four years, if the family came back to the beach . . . and Gabe certainly hoped they would. Something to look forward to and anticipate. He'd had one or two of those. Three summers of ripening for him and then just falling off the tree and into his lap.
The middle son had all of the attributes of the younger one, with the exception that he had a more mature, and very well-defined, musculature, and he was ripe for it. And in Gabe's experienced eyes, it seemed likely that he wanted it too. Just about to fall out of the tree and into someone's lap. Gabe didn't know why it shouldn't be him.
Whenever Gabe could manage to turn an eye on the family grouping, which had taken over a section of the beach not more than forty feet from his stand and just a bit closer to the water, Gabe caught the middle son eying the men walking parallel to the surf. He watched the well-built ones more closely than any of the others. Shapely women in bikinis didn't seem to have any effect on his interest.
This was Gabe's fourth year on the beach as a lifeguard. He'd learned to gauge the signs. The question was whether the young man realized what he was interested in getting. That and how experienced he was. Gabe liked them fresh.
There didn't seem much question that the middle son was interested in Gabe too, and Gabe did what he could to milk that. When he caught, out of the corner of his eye, the young man looking up at his stand, he suddenly had the urge to stretch and stood on the stand, flexing his muscles and working out the kinks.
The family packed up and left before 4:00 p.m., and Gabe was disappointed to see them go. But when the hustle and bustle cleared of picking up all of the gear and struggling through the loose sand on the path across the dunes to a tall condo opposite the ocean, the middle son was still there, sitting on his towel, and looking out to sea. Gabe could have been convinced that the young man was posing. He was wearing an electric-blue Speedo. But other than that he was all young, sleek, bronzed body and a black, curly mop of head hair.
Gabe wanted to believe that the youth had remained to make a connection with him, but there was no move to do so—unless having swum out beyond the surf and quickly exhausted himself so that all he could do was flail his arms in a call for help was his way of making a connection.
And maybe it was, Gabe later thought, when he was trying to justify having taken advantage of him and possibly wrecking him for any other choices in life.
He reached the young man easily, and held him close, dog paddling, until the youth calmed down a bit. They both were breathing hard, possibly neither wholly from the exertion of the swim, and Gabe made no effort to hide in that close hold that he was hard. If the young man realized that, he certainly didn't seem to shrink from it, which Gabe saw as a favorable sign.
When they got back to the beach, though, with the young man draped on Gabe's back and hanging on tight—and was that an erection he was sporting too, Gage wondered—the young man thanked him for the assist, with great embarrassment, but he didn't linger. He grabbed up his towel, raced up the beach on slender legs, and disappeared over the top of the dune and into an entrance into the nearest condo building.
"He'll be back tomorrow," Gabe muttered, trying to assure himself that the young man's embarrassment was a sign of inexperience rather than rejection.
Gabe didn't have to wait as long as for the next day on the beach.
He went out cruising on the Ocean City boardwalk that evening. There wasn't much action in Ocean City—the powers that be discouraged it, wanting this to be a family beach—but what there was would congregate on the boardwalk down near the inlet and would only subtly signal interest and availability.
Gabe was horny following the ocean rescue of that young Middle Eastern guy and was on the prowl. He hit pay dirt when he glanced into one of the penny arcades fronting on the boardwalk and saw the very same luscious young man playing a pinball machine. Not one to miss his chances, he sauntered up to the guy. "Having any luck?"
"I think these machines are rigged," the young guy said.
It was all Gabe could do to keep from rolling his eyes. Could a guy get more naïve, he wondered. But he couldn't deny that it turned him on, and he felt himself go hard. He was determined to make a try on this sweet piece of tail. It could be that the guy was putting him on, but if he was flirting with him, that must mean he was interested.
"You might not remember me," he said. "My name is Gabe. I was on the lifeguard stand out on the beach today."
"Of course I remember you," the young man said quickly. "How could I forget you? You saved my life. Uh, my name is Fadi."
"Fadi? Where does that name come from? You from Israel?"
"Hardly," Fadi said, with a little laugh. "I'm from the Bronx. But my family's originally from Lebanon. Second-generation American, though. I was born in the Bronx."
"Born in the Bronx?" Gabe was asking a different question, and Fadi seemed to be aware he was.
"Yeah, eighteen years ago."
Satisfied with that answer, and even more satisfied that the young man seemed savvy enough to be going willingly with the pitch, Gabe doubled back. "Lebanon? But from the Bronx?"
"Yes. My grandfather—you may have seen him on the beach today—came here from Beirut during the heavy fighting there in the early 80s. Brought the whole family with him. He doesn't speak much English yet, after all this time. We have Lebanese bakeries."
"In the Bronx?"
"Yes . . . and elsewhere in the city and state and up in Boston and down in Philadelphia."
"Oh," Gabe said. A rich kid. That went with the upscale of the condo he'd seen the family disappear into at the beach. That sometimes made it easier, he'd found. They thought they could have whatever they wanted and they didn't care much what society thought about it.
