Sexy Sailors

by Neil Plakcy

  Rick’s eyes were a soft, dark brown. Maybe that’s why his uncle confided in him. Something in those eyes let you know this guy wasn’t going to laugh at you for being silly or sentimental, or make fun of you for trying something you weren’t good at. Perfect qualities for an instructor.

  “He likes to talk when he’s nervous,” Rick said. “And he’s pretty proud of you.” He looked away. “He talked about you a lot. I was hoping I’d get the chance to meet you.”

  Okay, now that was a lot to take in all at once. T.J. never realized that his uncle got nervous about anything. Up until Aunt Gladdie left, Raymond had always seemed like a pillar of strength and certainty. As odd as it felt to know that, the thing that really struck T.J. was that Rick had wanted to meet him.

  Hoped to meet him.

  “Did he tell you I was gay?” T.J. asked.

  Rick shrugged. “Not in so many words, but I picked up on it. I tend to keep my personal life to myself when I’m teaching, so no, I don’t think your uncle was trying to talk you up for any particular reason. He’s genuinely proud of you.”

  Wow. T.J. didn’t know what to say.

  They shared a basket of fried clams accompanied by a good local microbrew. Once the food showed up, the conversation flowed easily. T.J. learned that Rick had had a semi-serious relationship for three years before it imploded.

  “He got jealous,” Rick said. “I don’t screw around, but my job puts me in contact with a lot of people. He couldn’t handle that.”

  That had been in Southern California. After the relationship ended, Rick had moved north. He’d answered an ad for sailing instructor two summers ago. He’d never planned on staying, but he liked the area and the people.

  “What do you do in the winter?” T.J. asked. “I mean, isn’t this a seasonal occupation?”

  Rick nodded. “It is. Nobody wants to learn how to sail in December.” He shrugged. “Last winter I worked as a personal trainer. I don’t have anything lined up yet, although the gym said they’d take me back.” He scrunched up his nose. “The women hit on me, though. The minute they start to get in shape—” He made a WTF gesture with his hands. “I don’t get it. I’m not the most effeminate gay man in the world, but it’s not like I come on to them.”

  T.J. chuckled, thinking about the woman on the rescue boat. “Happens to me, too, but probably not as often.”

  Rick gave him the once-over again. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Put you in a gym in bicycle shorts and a tank top, and every woman—and half the men—would be after you.”

  T.J. felt a flush creep into his cheeks. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you nuts? Not only are you a good-looking guy, you’re a nice guy. You bought your lonely uncle sailing lessons because of something he said to you as a kid. You’re a total chick magnet.”

  Rick had just given him an opening. T.J. took a deep breath and crossed mental fingers. He tried to give Rick a sexy, corner of the eye glance. “How about a guy magnet?”

  He felt stupid as soon as he said it, but it was too late to take it back.

  Luckily for him, Rick smiled. “A total guy magnet.”

  After that, they moved from the bar to the restaurant proper. Before T.J. knew it, a couple of hours had passed in pleasant conversation tinged every now and then with a flirtatious remark. A nice little nervous anticipation was building in his belly, but he still didn’t have a clue where this was going. It didn’t have the feel of a random hookup, but then again, no matter what Rick said, T.J. didn’t believe a guy like Rick—sexy, easygoing, athletic Rick—would want anything other than a random hookup with someone like him.

  They split the bill for dinner. When T.J. took out his cell to call a cab, Rick stopped him. “How about I give you a ride home? Or to your uncle’s, if you think that’s where he took your car.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Not that T.J. wouldn’t mind being in a car with Rick, but the man had already spent hours with him.

  They were standing on the boardwalk outside the restaurant. The lake looked silver in the moonlight. Soft yellow streetlights illuminated the footpath around the lake. A few nighttime dog walkers were out, but other than that, the area was deserted.

  Rick moved in close. “I know I don’t have to,” he said, his voice low. “I want to.”

  He’d stopped just shy of touching T.J. Up to me, T.J. thought. Rick was leaving the rest up to him.

  What the hell. He could survive a random hookup, couldn’t he? Even if it was with a guy he wouldn’t mind seeing for more than just one night?

  He closed the distance and kissed Rick lightly on the lips. He felt Rick grin against his mouth, and then Rick took over the kiss.

  When they broke apart a few moments later, T.J. was out of breath and his cock was pressing pretty insistently against the zipper of his jeans. Rick was one hell of a kisser.

  “Uh, yeah,” T.J. managed to say. “Sure. I could use a ride home.” Fuck the car. He could deal with that tomorrow.

  They kissed again when they got inside Rick’s car. This time they were both breathing hard when the kiss ended. Rick took T.J.’s hand and put it on the considerable bulge beneath his linen pants. T.J. squeezed, and Rick groaned.

  “How far away do you live?” Rick asked.

  “A couple of miles.”

  “Oh, good. I think I can make that.”

  T.J. squeezed again.

  “Well, not if you keep that up,” Rick said. His eyes were deep and dark, his mouth hungry as he pulled T.J. in for another kiss.

  T.J.’s own cock was demanding attention, but he wanted more than a hand job in the front seat of a car. He let go and pulled away from the kiss. “Then I guess we’d better go.”

  They managed to make it up the stairs to T.J.’s second-floor apartment before Rick grabbed him again. The man loved to kiss, not that T.J. minded. Especially not when Rick pressed him up against the inside of his front door and shoved his hand down the inside of T.J.’s jeans.

  The feel of Rick’s hand on him was amazing. All the lust that had been building up throughout dinner took over, and T.J.’s brain short-circuited. He propelled Rick down the short hallway to the bedroom, shedding his shirt along the way and then going to work on Rick’s linen pants. By the time they reached the bed, Rick was naked from the waist down and T.J. from the waist up. It didn’t take long for them to get rid of the rest of their clothes, and then Rick was on him.

  The guy was definitely a top. T.J. didn’t mind that, either, not with the kind of things that Rick could do with his mouth, and not just to T.J.’s cock. Rick used his tongue and lips on parts of T.J.’s body that he’d never known were erogenous zones. By the time they got around to actually fucking, T.J.’s skin was so sensitized, he thought he might come just from a breath of air across his nipples.

  As it was, it didn’t take T.J. long. Rick’s cock was long and thick, and it felt wonderful pounding into him. He hadn’t had a man in his bed in far too long, and he’d never had a man like Rick before. T.J. came fast and hard, and then went along for the ride as Rick worked to make himself come.

  Afterward, T.J. sprawled on his back, enjoying the pleasant buzz. Rick stirred after a moment and sat up.

  Was he leaving already? Maybe T.J. had misread the whole thing, and this was just Rick’s version of a random hookup.

  “I have a confession to make,” Rick said.

  His back was to T.J., so T.J. couldn’t see his face. T.J. frowned. Confessions after sex were never a good thing, right?

  “I set this up,” Rick said softly.

  “What?”

  Rick looked at T.J. over his shoulder. “With your uncle. To take your car so you’d need a ride home.”

  Now T.J. sat up in bed. “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “I wanted to meet you. Your uncle told me so much about you, how you haven’t dated in a while, and—”

  Okay, now T.J. got it, and he wasn’t happy about it. “So you thought I’d be an easy lay. Well,
congratulations, you got what you—”

  “No, that’s not it at all.” Rick turned around, and T.J. got a good look at his eyes. The guy wasn’t a player. He really cared what T.J. thought of him. “Your uncle said he’d bring you this afternoon, that you were a good swimmer and could be the guy overboard. He said it could be a way for me to meet you. When I pulled your uncle out of the water, he was tired, yeah, but the reason he wanted to go back to the dock was because I’d told him I liked you and I was thinking about asking you out, and he said he had a surefire way to make that happen.”

  “So that’s why you guys left me stranded on the safety boat with Nancy with the wandering fingers.” She’d sat next to him and actually started rubbing T.J.’s shoulders before he’d told her he batted for the other team. “So I’d be out of the way while my uncle lifted my car.”

  “I didn’t know he was going to do that.”

  “But you played along with it after the fact.”

  Rick looked down at the bed. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I did. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m really not.” He glanced up at T.J. “Not with the way things turned out. At least, not so far, anyway.”

  A part of T.J. was still annoyed that his uncle and Rick had played him, but it was a very small part. A bigger part wondered what happened now.

  “So,” he said, turning to face Rick. “Now that we’ve gotten the confession out of the way, where do you see this going?”

  “You’re not angry?”

  T.J. shrugged. “No one’s ever gone to so much trouble to meet me before, and at least now I know my uncle hasn’t turned to a life of crime.” It also explained why his uncle hadn’t answered his cell. “Although I’m not sure I like the fact that he thinks he can play matchmaker for me.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I didn’t mean this time,” T.J. said quickly. “I enjoyed this one a lot.” He grinned. “A hell of a lot.”

  Rick got up on his hands and knees and stalked over to T.J. “Oh, yeah? Feel like enjoying it some more?”

  T.J.’s cock twitched. Apparently that part of his anatomy liked the idea. He snaked an arm around the back of Rick’s neck and pulled him down until they were both lying on the bed.

  “I take it that’s a yes,” Rick said.

  T.J. kissed him. “That’s a yes.” A most definite yes.

  If things went the way T.J. hoped they would, his uncle would be out of the matchmaking business, maybe for good.

  “Just one thing,” T.J. said when they finished the kiss.

  “Hmm?”

  “Did my uncle pass his lesson?” T.J. hated to think that his uncle had screwed up his last lesson on purpose and wouldn’t be able to sail on his own if he wanted to.

  “Well, we might have to redo that last one,” Rick said. “But I won’t charge him for it.”

  “You won’t?”

  Rick grinned. “If you agree to play man overboard again.”

  T.J. pulled Rick back down for another kiss. “Anytime,” he said. “Anytime.”

  CRUISING

  Dominic Santi

  I get seasick in a fucking rowboat. I spend my days downtown in a suit or hiking in the mountains. I hate the water. But my partner Brendan is an assistant recreation director on a major cruise ship. He spends damn near half his life on the ocean. He has sun-bleached blond hair and sparkling blue eyes and his toned, slender body has a deep sailor’s tan with no tan lines. From the moment I met him at an AIDS Project LA fundraiser, I knew he was The One for me. We were both in our early thirties, and we loved the same types of theater and dancing and we were both gourmet cooks. We fucked like weasels every day he was in port.

  I was so crazy about him I convinced myself that the “one minor difference” between us didn’t matter—enough so that I hadn’t yet gotten around to mentioning it to him, even after two years together and our becoming domestic partners last spring. Every time he found me a “great deal” for a vacation trip on his ship, I somehow managed to have to work, or to help my uncle or a friend move, or the dog needed dental work that couldn’t be put off.

  “Next time, babe,” I’d say, laughing, and he’d grin and we’d end up fucking on the floor of whatever room we were in.

  Two months ago, he came home from his latest twenty-day “voyage” damn near dancing on air. The cruise line had finally gotten on board with he called “the whole family equality thing.” Same-sex spouses and domestic partners were now eligible for the incredibly discounted rates offered on select cruises to families of employees. As soon as the word came down, Brendan had picked the perfect cruise for the first anniversary of our commitment ceremony: fifteen “glorious days” sailing from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale by way of one of Brendan’s favorite places in the whole world—the Panama Canal.

  “Sweetie, this is going to be perfect!” he crowed, hauling me into his arms and peppering me with his drugging kisses. “We’re talking Mexico, Nicaragua, Aruba—and the Canal! I am so going to fuck you senseless in the ports of your dreams!”

  All I could think of as he hauled me off to fuck me senseless in our own comfortable bedroom was this is so fucking not going to be great!

  In the interim between that night and that day of our embarkation, the time had still never quite been right to bring up the little problem I had being on the water. The closer the date got, the more I suddenly found reasons to work late on the days he was home—and when I did get home from work, to go directly to bed, “sorry, babe, I’m exhausted!” while he was still up. If all else failed and I couldn’t avoid him, as soon as he brought up the subject, I distracted him with a blow job that left him so wasted he forgot about everything else.

  I pretended I didn’t notice how he was getting a little bit distant, too. Fuck, Brendan’s so fucking gorgeous! And he’s smart and funny and responsible and pretty much everything I’d ever wanted in a partner. I was so horny with missing him, I was jerking off every day in the shower, which with the schedule I’d set for myself didn’t leave nearly enough time for sex with him. More than once, he’d asked me if there was anything we needed to talk about. The day before we left, he pointedly demanded to know “right now, dammit!” if there was anything he needed to know.

  There sure as hell wasn’t. I just laughed and kissed him and ignored his frustrated look, telling him once again that I was just working extra to keep on track with our plan to make double payments on the condo mortgage so we wouldn’t have to worry about money on the trip or later on. When he’d finally packed both our bags and was waiting impatiently at the van taking us to the port, I plastered a big fake grin on my face and jogged out the door, quite a bit later than he was comfortable leaving for a cruise. During our rush through LA’s early-afternoon traffic, all I could do was hope for a traffic jam or for the ship to have mechanical trouble or even for a fucking earthquake—anything so the whole mess would blow over and I suddenly wouldn’t have to go anywhere near Brendan’s fucking ocean, much less get on board his fucking ship. Which, of course, sure as hell wasn’t the way things worked out.

  “You get seasick?!” The not-entirely-unexpected incredulity in his voice did nothing to quiet my stomach. “Christ, I thought you wanted a divorce!”

  Now, that was enough to drag me out of my misery. I carefully lifted the cold cloth he’d laid across my forehead and looked tentatively up at him. Just the motion of my eyeballs moving had my stomach rebelling again, though there was no doubt it was already completely empty. I groaned and closed my eyes.

  “Open your eyes, dammit!”

  “I can’t. I’ll puke.” Again. I lay as still as I could on the bunk while Brendan put another cold cloth on my neck. I didn’t think I’d ever been more miserable in my life.

  “Keeping your eyes open helps. And you’re not going to be sick any more, at least not now. The Compazine should be kicking in. It always works.”

  My face heated just thinking about how and where the drug was dissolving into my bloodstream—the drug prescribed a
nd administered by Brendan’s friend and occasional fuck buddy, the ship’s doctor, who’d made a cabin call as a special favor because Brendan had been so upset at how ill I was. If there was a more embarrassing way to be spending my anniversary, I couldn’t think of it. Then I remembered the rest of Brendan’s words.

  “A divorce?” I said, damn near sitting up on the bed. I moaned as I fell right back down. “Why the hell would I want a divorce? I love you!”

  The movement had me so nauseous I was once again prostrate on the sweaty sheets. I groaned as Brendan washed my face with a cool cloth and laid a fresh cold pack on my neck. Just the sunlight coming in the window over the bed made my eyes hurt. The cold pack was heavenly.

  “You didn’t seem to want me around,” he said quietly. “Every time I tried to talk to you about the trip—or anything!—you cut me off and had, you know, something more important to do. I thought maybe you were getting tired of me.” He shrugged self-consciously. “I wondered if maybe you’d started seeing someone else while I was gone.”

  At my raised eyebrows, he blushed and looked away. “I started thinking I was being really stupid, working extra cruises for the mortgage and all, and so I could take time off for this trip. Maybe I’d been neglecting you so much you were taking up with somebody else instead.”

  How anybody so perfect could occasionally be so insecure always shocked me. But Brendan was damn near in tears. I took a deep breath and looked miserably up at him.

  “No way is this your fucking fault. I didn’t want to tell you I get seasick.”

  Both his eyebrows went up. He dropped the cloth on the nightstand.

  “This is better?” There was an edge coming into his voice. Okay, pissed was better than dejected. I took a deep breath and tried to focus on him. Fuck. I hurt everywhere.