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This story was written for a writing exercise limiting the text to exactly 750 words.
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"You OK, Luke? Should we... do you want...?"
"That was fine, Chris. No, no more. I'm bushed. Maybe some other--"
"Yeah, sure," Luke Chin's mate on the William and Mary Swim team said as he rolled to a sitting position on Luke's dorm room bed. They'd finished a swim meet with Old Dominion followed by Chemistry exams. The hand job session was meant to release their tension. It had done that for Chris, but apparently not for Luke, who still lay there, tense and far, far away. Chris thought they'd move on to doing more, but he was wrong.
"We don't have a meet this weekend. So, what are you going to do?" Chris asked. Maybe, he thought, they could go to Richmond, get a motel room, and get it on. Neither had gone all the way yet. They were both good-looking, sleek-bodied guys--Luke three-quarters Chinese, but that only added an exotic twist. They both declared gay. Why couldn't they--hadn't they--gotten it on yet?
Because Luke kept saying it wasn't intense enough--not consuming enough. He said he didn't feel it enough.
"I think I'll go to the beach--maybe to Virginia Beach," Luke said.
"I could go with--"
"No, I think I'd rather go alone."
* * * *
Luke rented a Virginia Beach Boardwalk Resort room on the beach at 1600 Atlantic Avenue for three nights. Arriving after noon on Saturday, he changed into a Speedo and tight T, with sandals; immediately went down to the boardwalk; and sat on a bench facing the beach. He'd asked around at college and been told to go to this hotel and sit on this bench.
He watched the activity on the beach. Muscular guys in Speedos were playing a game of beach volleyball to the north. Gym equipment was embedded in the sand to the south, and more muscular guys were working out there and showing off their muscles.
Luke had been told that the guys on the beach here would be dominant gays--most looking for hookups.
"Those guys are rough."
He sat there for an hour, dividing his attention between the volleyball game and the bodybuilders. When he could make eye contact, he did so. One of the bodybuilders, a deeply tanned guy, with bulging muscles and a blue- and black-swirls breast and sleeve tattoo, walked up from the beach and sat beside Luke.
The look they exchanged said it all.