Dear Readers: Herein concludes my reminiscence. But trust me, it's really impossible to read this 3rd chapter without the context of the first two. --JamesonX
I may have awoken that second morning with the sweet sense of no longer being entirely alone in the world, but I awoke with plenty of anxiety, too. As I looked over at the sleeping face of Jacob: his olive skin and rough morning beard, his tangle of black curls on the pillow, I tried to think hard—not always my strong suit. Was there some kind of a future here? Did any of this make any goddam sense at all?
Sure, we'd had a great moment. In fact, three great moments—and again the individual scenes tumbled into my brain like Old Master paintings—rich and dark and fleshy—each magnificent peak surging again in my loins. Sure, I'd fulfilled that longtime fantasy. I'd fucked a man. I'd stroked his balls. Bent him over. And it was good. But now what? Jacob here wanted to
move in
with me. He was, like, talking about staking his goddam
life
on me. He'd put up pictures and brought in his shit. Surely, he was nuts. And surely, the whole situation was headed for big trouble, or worse. Would I ever, ever, ever tell
anyone
I knew that I had had sex with a man? That I now had a
boyfriend?
Like...tell Vince and the guys down at the surf school? My little brother Pete in Phoenix, who practically worshipped me? My Mother...well she already hated me, but still, it seemed impossible. Good thing my father was dead, as they say, or it would kill him.
And there seemed to be no way that Jacob, however much he wanted to be "the new Jacob," and probably (unlike me), really was gay, would
actually give up
his wife and his fancy life in Bel Air, when the shit hit the fan. Didn't he say he worked for his
wife's father's
fucking law firm? How could t
hat
ever play out in the real world, except in disaster?
"You are the Surf God," I told myself as I stared at the ceiling, using the words that always made me happy. "You are free as the wind and the waves. You are the troubler of women's dreams and master of lesser men." I took a deep breath, but the words did not make me feel the way they always had. They seemed somehow...absurdly youthful. Though I was only 27, I had the sudden and profound sense of being too old for those words.
I would make him breakfast. That's what I would do. I would let him know that I was not the demanding brute who took and took both in bed and out of bed and never gave anything in return. Yesterday he'd made me breakfast and then he'd let me lean him over the kitchen table and fuck him in the ass. Today, I'd make him breakfast, and...well, then we would part. Like gentlemen. Like grownups. One last kiss, perhaps.
Carefully, carefully, I crept out of bed, and went into the "kitchen" part of the one-room shack. In the refrigerator, I was surprised to find a full haul of food: milk, eggs, cheese, meat, those little long green onions. On the counter was a loaf of that unsliced bread you get at actual bakeries. The shack had never had it so good. Gamely, I turned on the burner and pulled a pan out as quietly as I could. I'd never actually cooked anything for another person, but shit, how hard was it to scramble some eggs? You just broke 'em in the pan and then fished out the shells, right? Then I could slice some cheese on top while it was cooking—cheese was always a good thing. I opened a tiny box of what looked like fancy cheese, but it had some kind of weird white fungus growing all over it—so I threw it out. Waste of money there.
Just when the eggs were done, and I was trying hard to scrape them off the pan and get out the last of the shell, an alarm went off, and Jacob shot out of bed, naked as a jay bird.
"Shit, shit, shit," he shouted. " I thought I set this thing for seven. I'm going to be late."
"Morning, Jacob. I'm making breakfast."
"That is so sweet, lover. But it's eight, I have a client meeting at nine, and it's easily 40 minutes from here."
That word lover entered the room like an uninvited guest—the kind that makes you awkward and unsure of yourself. Really not okay to use that word.
"Jacob—" I glowered.
"Look, I'll call you," he said with a smile, and ran into the shower. I just stood there with a spatula in my hand, looking very unlike a surf god.
Soon he was out of the shower, drying himself off, and I just watched as, still naked, he threw a suitcase on the bed and pulled out a fancy-ass slate-gray suit and a little brush to get the lint off of it. He turned his back on me as he unpacked, no doubt to give me a view of his hairy balls wagging between his legs. I watched him pull on his little jockey shorts and button his monogrammed white lawyer shirt and conservative fucking lawyer tie, and then pull on the suit and sparkling shoes. All in all, an effective strategy on his part.
"How do I look?"
"Not at all like someone who just fucked a surf instructor in a beach shack." The words sound joking, but I said them kind of slow and serious, and he understood what I was trying to say.
Our eyes met, and he tried to laugh it off. "I guess not. But life is like that. Unpredictable."
"Jacob, you know that there's a lot of crazy—"
"I'll call you, okay?" he said with a desperate smile. "But if you don't take my call, and I find my shit out on the beach when I get back this evening, it's still okay. It really is. I said I was taking that gamble."
"I'm not that kind of a jerk. Another kind, maybe, but not that kind. I was going to make you breakfast."
"So you were," he said and met my eyes again.
At that, I walked over and kissed him hard, on the mouth, grabbing his junk through his fancy suit, but not putting my tongue in—I was trying to be good. "None of this makes any goddam sense," I said when I released him. "But you go to work and we'll both think about it." I hung onto his junk for a second before I let go. What was I doing? I didn't know. Letting the dice roll across the table, I guess.
He just gave me a long look and grabbed his laptop and shot out the door, leaving it open. I watched him struggle up through the sand to his silver fucking Boxster, which had surprisingly not been stolen overnight.
When I want to think, I always clean my boards—leaving 'em out in the sun to warm up, and then carefully scraping off all the old wax. It's good for the soul. Later, I'd do some solo surfing. Then, late afternoon, I'd walk into town for some beer—did I mention that I didn't own a car or even have a license in those days?
By the time Jacob came back that evening, it would all be clear. And I would be ever so proud of myself for my mature and philosophic attitude about the whole thing. In fact, by noon, I had a beautiful scenario worked out, in which he would move back out on the best of terms, but keep on with the surfing lessons once a month as a way to meet for some secret man sex. We'd be, like, lifelong friends having secret rendezvous. He'd tell me about his life and complain about his wife in Bel Air, and I would still be the hetero Sex God, growing leathery but handsome with age. Just a little bi, on the side, for fun. And I'd tell him tales of the beach and we'd get drunk together afterwards.
You know, every month. Secretly.
Around one o'clock, a little emerald green Civic pulled over on the highway, and I watched a small redhead walk down the path between the rocks, and purposefully across the sand to my beach shack. When she got close, she shaded her eyes to read my wonderful, hand-painted "Surf God" sign over the door. Then she shaded her eyes to look at me, shirtless and magnificent, sitting on an overturned bucket and scraping a longboard.
"Are you Peter?" she asked.
