I shouldn't have been bored. I was lying, naked on my belly on a nice soft bed, staring out the window at the masts of yachts in Hilton Head's Shelter Cove, the sturdy little hulls thrusting their hard masts into the clouds. I had what I thought I wanted. A week off from a grueling job, far from anyone I knew—a demanding boss, a grasping wife, a simpering boyfriend—a week in this South Carolina paradise doing what I liked best: tennis or sailing in the morning and cruising the rest of the day. Bringing pretty boys home and spreading my cheeks for them. Just such a tanned, toned pretty boy I'd hooked up with on the tennis court stretched over me now. He was tooling my depths in deep, proficient strokes as good as I'd gotten in years. But he wasn't enough. I was bored. I wanted something new, something rough, something a little seamy and threatening.
The pretty boy did me a good turn, though. I lied to him and told him he was terrific and that I wouldn't be able to walk straight for days. And then I hinted that I heard this part of South Carolina was into something a little different, a little seamier and rougher perhaps. I didn't ask in terms that I was going to go right for it, saying that what I liked about Hilton Head was its absence of this underclass underbelly, but he contemplated the question as if it was a serious academic one and gave me the information I wanted.
"You're right," he said. "We don't go in for anything like that here. But there's a place I've heard of, Jack's, across the sound, near Paris Island. You know the military training base. Rough place that Paris Island training center. Feeds into rough needs and desires, too. I hear that Jack's caters to that need. So you best just stay away from that Paris Island; those military boys can go crazy."
Late the next morning I'd driven around the sound to the other side and managed to find Jack's. Appropriately, it looked like a shack begging for a condemnation notice on the door and a fire in the kitchen. But there was a variety of "tough" hillbilly vehicles—trucks, souped-up vintage racers, Hummers, and motorcycles—parked around it, so I assumed it was open. My maroon BMW Z3 roadster looked nervous parked between two of these intimidating and hulking vehicles, but even the image of my roadsters being hugged between all that male testosterone on wheels had me tingling and my "not bored" juices flowing.
I'd purposely come early in the day, as I figured the very serious guys would be here then. And I wasn't disappointed. The bar was filled with hulks, several of whom were also hunks, playing pool, permeating the air with smoke, and slugging back beer in cans to the tune of raucous laughter, challenged four-letter words, the sounds of pool balls breaking against the side of tables, and the squeaking of leather.
I sat at the bar, drinking imported beer in a glass, and surveyed the room, looking for my "not boring" man. He was with a group of three others, all big guys, but in a powerfully constructed way, at a smoke-rimmed table, where they were playing cards, knocking back beers, and cussing up a storm.
I put my eyes on him and kept them there, willing him to come get me. He was deeply tanned or Hispanic, I know not which. I just know he looked real good. A leather vest, no shirt, a swirl of curly black body hair, muscles bulging. He had his shoulder-length hair back in a pony tail. Brooding dark, piercing eyes; the dark sullenness of his face relieved when he opened his face into a very nice, white-toothed smile. He would have been handsome except for the thin scar running from the corner of an eye down to the corner of his mouth. Hell, he was handsome even with that. And dangerous looking. Like a cat or a snake, looking at leisure, uncaring, but ever ready to pounce.
His eyes found mine and stayed there, giving me a chance to look away, giving me a promise if I didn't. I didn't, and his face lit up into a grin. He said something to the others at the table. They turned and clamped hard stares on me, assessing me, looking me up and down. And I was looking at them too. Any of them would have done fine. But the one I'd first picked out, stood, tossed his cards on the table, ran a forearm across his mouth, and moved around the table and toward me.
His stride showed confidence and a flowing grace. His jeans were tight and his basket prominent. I could easily follow the length of him across his groin, pushing at the taunt denim, as he walked toward me, and I trembled at the thought of where this could be going.
"You lost, Pretty Boy?" he asked in a pleasant, slightly sarcastic tone that resonated with rich baritone. "You missed the turnoff to where they're filming the hunk movie?"
I took that as a sign of approval. "I heard about this place. I sought it out," I responded.
"I'm Pete," he said. "You really know what you came here for?"
"Hi, Pete, I'm Cliff," I answered. "Yes, I was bored and, as I said, I asked around and heard about this place."
Pete was leaning up to my stool now, and had an arm around me. "You want to go someplace with me?"
"Yeah, yeah, I think so," I said, trying to keep the catch out of my voice at how fast this was unfolding.