Home to Fire Island

Danny locked the door to his room on Sunday morning after he was finally alone and wouldn't come out even for the offer of lunch upstairs. Then when it was dark he slipped out to find something to eat somewhere where no one would know him. The bar wasn't open on Sundays, so there was no requirement for him to work.

He was thinking increasingly of what he wanted. It wasn't what he had gotten in that last Saturday night set, he knew that for sure now. He'd continue doing it—for the money to help pay for his college—until the end of the season, but it wouldn't be this that kept him on Fire Island.

The thought of moving upstairs with Sam's family and sleeping with Sam was more of a possibility, but that wasn't quite it either. Sam was a user. Danny had the notion that he might like the older men, like Sam, more than younger ones. But with Sam it was more about his bottom line, even if he tried to come across with words indicating otherwise. And it wouldn't be much of a trade. There were elements of Danny's mother in both Ruth and Sally. And the same in Sam of Floyd, although Sam certainly wasn't the user and abuser that Floyd had been.

No, Danny didn't think that what he was seeking was a trade of the family in Plainview for the one at Sam's Bar.

He locked his door that night as well and draped a sheet over the mirror on the wall between his room and Sam's office. He reread a few chapters of the Holleran book, running his hands over his body and fondling himself, and went to sleep clutching the dog tags to his chest. He slept the sleep of the exhausted, his body still mending from the Saturday night calisthenics. But he didn't sleep so deeply that he didn't hear the turning of the door knob to his door in the night.

He assumed that Sam had a key to the door and if he had used it and come into the room, Danny would have accepted him. It wasn't sex Danny was rejecting—it wasn't even Sam. Danny just was on edge, not being fully satisfied and not understanding why. There was some sense of home that he was pursuing; he thought he'd worked that out. A mutual commitment of some sort that he had felt. But not really having had a home for a very long time, he wasn't sure if he'd recognize it if he stumbled into it.

The next morning he left the bar again before there was any sound of activity from the apartment above. He had already walked the streets of Cherry Grove, and it had provided nothing but frustration for him. He decided he wanted to see more of the island, to check out some of its other beaches beyond that of Cherry Grove and the nudist beach at the lighthouse. He caught a bus headed to the west end and got out at a place called Kismet—just because the name caught his attention.

There was a beach there, and a pier, and a row of beach-fringe mansions just like at Cherry Grove. Some of them were similar to the one that he'd seen Billy and his older "daddy," Kyle at, and Danny found himself wondering if Kyle had built any of these.

Bare-chested and with his flip-flops in one hand he walked the beach between the line of houses and the surf of the bay. At the last moment before he'd left the bar, he'd taken off the Sam's Bar T he was wearing, suddenly not wanting that connection while he explored this day. Much of the time he was clutching the dog tags dangling between his pecs.

He'd gone out on the wide, long public pier, to the end, and turned around and looked back. There must have been forty or more mansions lining the beach, set above it on a low cliff, so that even their first floors peeked out over the dunes at the top of the beach. Most of the houses were of weathered wood, like Kyle's house was. Some soared like his did too, but some also had towers rising from them with decks on top, where the owners could get a real good view. Quite near where the pier came out into the water, Danny's attention was arrested by one of the larger houses in the line, one that had a roof giving the impression of sails, just like Kyle's house and, now that Danny thought about it, like the roof of the Sydney Opera House in Australia that he'd seen in photographs.

It wasn't so much the house itself that had caught Danny's attention as it was the turquoise color of the patio furniture on the deck off the first floor, as well as on the balcony deck of the next level up and even up on top of the tower that rose from the top of the house, with an outside staircase winding around it. The color of the furniture was a little shocking against the weather-beaten gray of the house planking and the walls of tinted windows. It wasn't ugly; it was just attention getting when it appeared that the whole point of the design of the house was to disappear into the landscape.

Focusing on the turquoise furniture zeroed Danny's eyes in on a lone figure at the railing of the deck on top of the tower. The figure of a man, in navy-blue boxer swimming trunks, was leaning over the rail and looking out toward where Danny was on the pier.

Danny walked back along the pier toward the beach. There was no one else on the pier or in Danny's line of sight. It was just Danny and the man standing at the top of his house and leaning over the deck railing. Danny kept his eyes on the man while he walked back to the beach, and he had the sensation that the man was maintaining watch on him as well. It was like those dramatic scenes in a movie where everything goes silent and there are only two people in the world, each with their attention completely focused on the other.

The house was to the east of the pier. When Danny got to the beach, he turned west and walked a good mile up the beach, alternating his attention between the houses on the short cliff above the beach and the bay, where a couple of small sailboats were playing tag. There appeared to be two guys in each of the boats, and they were hailing and waving at each other and weaving their sailboats around each other in some sort of dance. A mating dance, Danny thought. Then he laughed, castigating himself for reducing everything to sex. He was letting the reputation of Fire Island run away with his imagination.

When he reached the end of the beach, he turned and walked back. He looked out to the water. The two sailboats were lashed together now, and closer to the land than they had been when he'd first seen them. The four men were on one boat, paired off, one man on his back on the bow, with another man crouched between his spread legs, and the other pair near the mast, one man clutching at the ropes running up into the sails and the other one standing close behind him, with his hands spread out on the belly of the other, holding their midsections close together.

Danny laughed again, capitulating to the reputation of Fire Island—and nursing a tiny regret that he wasn't one of the men being fucked on the sailboat. As he walked back toward the pier, he was lost in thought about how it would be to be fucked on a sailboat like that. He'd never been on a sailboat. He'd come to Fire Island determined to experience it all. He'd have to look for opportunities for someone to take him sailing—and to sail him over the sun.

He didn't come back completely to the present before he found that he'd walked under the pier and was standing on the beach, facing the house with the turquoise furniture, just staring up at it, fingering the dog tags at his chest.

What brought him out of his reverie apparently was movement at the house. He looked up to see that the man who had been leaning over the rail on the tower deck was now winding his way down the outside staircase that encased the tower. As he did so, his eyes were glued to Danny.

He was maybe in his forties, but in great condition. A large man, barrel-chested, heavily muscled. More of a Zeus than an Apollo in build. Dark hair on top but with gray at the temples going pretty far up into the hair on his head. The hair cut in a crew-cut style. He looked like money and authority or, Danny thought, what his idea of a retired Marine drill sergeant would be—if the sergeant had made a pile of money after leaving the service. He wasn't moving fast, but he was looking directly at Danny.

Danny turned and walked back under the pier and then, at the first street dead-ending at the beach, he entered that and went directly to the bus stop. It was getting on toward when he needed to be back at Sam's Bar.

* * * *

"You OK?" Sam's voice had an edge of concern to it.

"I'm fine, Sam."

"Well, we didn't see you all yesterday, and you were gone today when I came down. I thought maybe Saturday—and well, later that night, got to you. You aren't thinking of leaving already, are you?"

Sam hadn't meant to ask the last question—just like he hadn't meant to fuck Danny after his ordeal in the last set of Saturday night. But Danny was Danny. And Sam was Sam.

"No, nothing's wrong. I just needed some time for my body to recover. I'm fine now. I'm sorry I locked my door last night."

"Ummm, I wasn't saying. I didn't know you locked your . . . you can certainly lock your door whenever you want."

Danny laid his hand on Sam's forearm. "I said I was sorry and that I'm OK. You want to go to my room now? I told you I'd go with you whenever you wanted. Saturday didn't change that."

"Well, uh, no, that's not necessary," Sam said. He was sweating, but it was as much from relief as from not wanting to box Danny in too much. "It's just the serving tonight—and anything on the side you want to do by your choice. Diego and Pete will take the pole tonight. But maybe tomorrow . . ."

"Yeah, sure. No problem."

Monday at Sam's was a slow night. The small Cuban, Diego, did fine on the pole and with the audience. He really knew how to turn on the charm and wiggle his butt. Pete was sort of lethargic, though. Danny's eyes kept going to him on the pole—more for pointers on what not to do when it was his turn.

The crowd was thin enough that Danny had no trouble noticing that Billy and Kyle were there. They didn't stay long, though. Some rowdy guys were playing, putting the moves on Billy. Billy was egging them on, and Danny noticed that, although Kyle didn't show any signs of irritation, they didn't stay long.

They stayed long enough for Danny to get the remembrance of Kyle plowing Billy incessantly on the deck of his house and how powerful Kyle's "daddy" body looked working on his mind to the point of arousing him. Kyle had the same Zeus-style body that the guy with the house with the turquoise furniture had. Danny was enough worked up about "daddy" bodies that shortly before closing he went to Sam and asked him to come to his room that night.

Sam's reaction was like he'd died and gone to heaven.

While they were cooling down from fucking on Danny's bed, Sam broached the subject again of Danny moving upstairs.

"What would Ruth think?" Danny asked.

"Ruth would be fine with it. She's got Sally."

"So, you don't fuck your wife?"

"Sure I do. It would be fine. You could have your own room. It's a big apartment."

"Do you fuck Sally too?"

"When she wants it."

"And both together?"

"We do that, yes."

"You'd fuck the three of us together?"

"I hadn't thought of that, but—"

"It's something to think about," Danny interjected. "Me moving upstairs . . . eventually . . . anyhow."

The talk had gotten Sam hot again, and he was showing signs of wanting to resume the fuck. Danny wasn't as turned on about the prospect of either a threesome or foursome involving the women upstairs, though. His thoughts instead went to knowing it was going to take Sam a while to build up steam again. His body just wasn't on the same arousal schedule as his mind. That made Danny think of Kyle doing Billy again. Fucking him and, just minutes after coming, ready to fuck him again. And then again.

Sam was stroking Danny's cock, and Danny began to pant and moan. He came, thinking of a man who could recharge almost immediately again and again, long before Sam was hard enough to enter him a second time.

* * * *

Danny had no idea what had brought him back to the Kismet Beach early Tuesday afternoon. But he was there, standing and staring at the house with the turquoise deck furniture—bare-chested again and fingering his dog tags. The man came out on the lower deck, again in just boxer swim trunks, and leaned over the deck and stared at Danny.

The two stood like that for several minutes. Then Danny broke the connection they obviously had and turned and walked toward the east, along the line of beach houses. He'd gone the other direction the day before. This time he had told himself he wanted to see what the houses looked like on the other side of the pier.

The distance to the end of the beach, once again, was close to a mile. It was an hour later before Danny came back down the beach. When he got close to the house with the turquoise furniture, his eyes scanned the decks. But there was no one there to be seen. Danny experienced a sense of disappointment. He stopped and stood where he had stood before, looking at the house. He was holding his breath, waiting for the man to come out on deck.

It was a shock then, when he felt the coldness of a wet arm encircle him from the back—from the side of the water. The man—the man from the house with the turquoise furniture—had risen, dripping, from out of the bay. He turned Danny to face him and pulled him in close with an arm around his waist.

Danny was too surprised to do more than tremble and meet the man's lips with his as their faces came together. He had gray eyes. Danny didn't know if he'd ever met a man with gray eyes before.

Danny could feel the hardness of the man's cock against his belly through the clinging, wet navy-blue boxer swim shorts. The man was tall and he'd swept Danny up on his tiptoes so that their lips could meet.

"I want to fuck you." The voice was deep, commanding.

"Yes," Danny whispered.

The man turned Danny toward the pier—surprisingly not toward his house—and guided Danny under the pier, up in the shadows, behind the pilings.

He fucked Danny doggy style there in the sand and seaweed behind the pilings, the pier just a foot or two above their heads. There was no talking. Just grunting and groaning and hand grabbing and probing, cock invading, and prostate worrying. Then hands clutching dog tags and arching Danny's chest back for deeper thrusting. A cry of release from Danny and a push of his chest down in the sand, and the man crouching farther over his back, finding new depth and thrusting, thrusting, thrusting. A jerk and ejaculation, a kiss in the hollow of Danny's neck, and the young man was pushed prone on the sand. Then the man was gone.

Danny lay there, fisting his dog tags and trying to hold back a sob. There was a slight feeling of violation. But, strangely enough, it wasn't because the man had roughly fucked him and then just left him. It was because the man had handled his father's dog tags. Just a casual fuck, but the man had handled the only thing Danny felt he owned—and had given nothing of his own vulnerability in return. Rising, he walked into the surf, washing the sand and seaweed off his body—and the semen out of his channel.

On Wednesday afternoon, the man laid out a large beach towel under the pier, pushed Danny on his back, and lifted Danny's buttocks over the knees he pushed down between Danny's thighs and rubbed the heels of his hands roughly on Danny's nipples as he fucked him hard and deep. Danny had not worn his dog tags. This time the man had brought condoms, knowing that Danny would let him fuck him.

Once. The man had just fucked him once each time. No preliminary. No request the second time they fucked. Assuming that Danny was his after the first request to fuck him. And Danny had come back on his own volition, so the man couldn't be gainsaid on that. Just the one deep and furious fuck. Nothing before, and the man just walked away after.

On Thursday afternoon, he fucked Danny standing against one of the pier pilings, the young man's wrists bound to a hook on the reverse side of the column above his head.

He didn't leave Danny hanging there this time, though. As he was undoing the cuffs, he said. "My name is Lawrence. I live here at the beach"—as if Danny hadn't figured that out already—"I want you to come home with me and spend the night."

"Yes. I'm Danny."

The inside of Lawrence's beach house was much like the outside—turquoise being the dominant accent color on stark-white backgrounds—with minimalist furnishings.

Danny found that the lower deck wasn't on the first floor of the house. When they'd walked above the dunes, he saw that there was a lower level. The house was sitting on a concrete half-sunken basement, with one side being a two-car carport. There was a Mercedes two-door sports car in one of the ports. Lawrence took Danny up to the next level, which housed a living room, a dining room and a kitchen—all huge. All minimally, but obviously very expensively, furnished. The living room was overpowered by a huge-screen TV in front of a long, white sofa with turquoise pillow accents.

Lawrence padded around in the navy-blue boxer swim trunks and nothing else. He fixed them massive steaks and a salad and served wine. Danny ate at the kitchen counter and Lawrence ate standing up on the other side of the counter. He was eating Danny up with his eyes, but he didn't make any moves on the young man. Danny was impressed with the dinner but felt slightly chilly—and not because of the temperature. He wanted Lawrence to take him hard on the dining room table. It didn't happen. But that didn't mean that Lawrence treated him badly. He just did more looking than he did talking or action. Other than that, he was being a very good host.

After dinner they watched a football game on the TV in the living room and drank beer. They sat close together on the white sofa, and Lawrence became more demonstrative the more beer he drank, pulling Danny in close to him and embracing him and kissing his mouth and eyelids and nipples and fondling his cock.

Danny was between Lawrence's thighs, sucking his cock off during the third quarter of the game, and Lawrence fucked him on the sofa facing the TV during the fourth quarter.

Danny's chest dug into the arm of the sofa. His arms swung toward the floor over the arm. Lawrence had pushed his head down toward the floor too as he was entering his channel with his cock from behind. Danny cried out as Lawrence's hard cock moved up inside him. Lawrence grabbed Danny's hair on the top of his head and jerked his head up and back. Danny was facing a floor-to-ceiling mirror. He gazed into the mirror, watching his own grimace turn to a look of passion. He could see Lawrence's handsome, mature face above his, a face set in a self-satisfied, wicked grin, the man's brows knit in the exertion of the fuck.

"Daddy, daddy. Do me good," Daddy moaned. Lawrence was so ruggedly handsome. A rock-solid soldier, conquering him.

Lawrence wrapped his arms around Danny and pulled his torso up into his chest. One hand was cupping one of Danny's nipples, holding Danny close to him, while his other hand encased Danny's cock and started to stroke him. Lawrence planted his chin on Danny's shoulder and they were both looking into the mirror, watching the effect of Lawrence's cocking on Danny's face and torso. Danny was grimacing from the movement of the cock inside him and writhing on the imprisoning cock, and Lawrence was giving his wicked smile.

"You love it. Watch yourself in the mirror. You are getting it good."

Danny did. And he was. He threw his arms around Lawrence's neck, turned his face to Lawrence's, and they kissed. And then Danny came, on the arm of the sofa. Lawrence pulled him down onto his back on the sofa, straddled his chest, and came while face fucking Danny.

Then they just lay there, in each other's arms, during the after-game commentary and the late news. Inside, Danny was screaming that he wanted it again. His best fucks were the second or third time. Floyd had done that to him, conditioned him to that. Floyd had never had him just the once. Danny fondled Lawrence's cock as they lay there, trying to get him hot again, but Lawrence wasn't engorging. After the news closed down, Lawrence said, "Let me show you where you can sleep. I want you to stay the night."