Hot Shots

by Michael P. Thomas

  “What, now?”

  “Yeah, now. You’ve been here for two weeks, we haven’t even been out to the range. I mean, it’s the whole reason you came! Come on, my finger’s itching.”

  “Finally!” I said, following him out the door and across the grass, my stomach in my throat, my hard-on having fled the scene.

  Through the eyes of someone who had no idea what he was looking at or what to look for, the long, low, indoor/outdoor shooting range across the meadow-posing-as-garden certainly seemed state-of-the-art. He led me into a low-slung shelter, the back wall of which was covered in racks of rifles and pistols. These faced the open side of the building and a series of distressingly small, round targets staggered, he pointed out, at distances of 10, 25, and 50 metres. On my long and winding road to Olympia, I had tried archery (for about a half an hour), and was rather looking forward to similarly large, straw targets. I could barely see the 50-metre targets across Marcel’s garden, and would have trouble hitting one with a cannon, much less faking any skill with a handgun. Remembering my role, however, I turned loose a low whistle of appreciation.

  “This is quite a set-up,” I cooed.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I haven’t really been that focused on shooting for a while. I’m not exactly at the top of my game. That’s why I’m excited to have you here; to get back into it. I figure if we’re gonna try and get one of us to London, we might as well both go together. I’ve never had a teammate before,” he gushed, “it was always just me.”

  “That would be great,” I declared.

  “Don’t be so nervous,” he counseled, reading the tone in my voice. “We’ll just have a little fun today. See where you’re at. See what I’ve gotten myself into.” He chuckled.

  I groaned.

  He perused the wall for a moment, alternately browsing the rack of rifles and assessing my physique, muttering to himself. “Let’s see…you’ve got quite long arms…this one might be a bit much, you just off crutches and all…”

  Shortly he made his selection and unmounted a rifle. He turned to hand it off to me, and I fumbled it immediately. It was either too light or too heavy compared to what I was expecting—I wasn’t exactly sure which, consumed as I was with praying that my acute embarrassment wouldn’t actually kill me, while secretly hoping that it would. My sheepish grin elicited a stone-faced response.

  He bent to retrieve the rifle and cradled it in the crook of his left arm. “You’ve never shot before in your life, have you?” Less an accusation than a point of clarification—he’d known I was lying.

  “Does tequila count?”

  This got the tiniest chuckle, which I took as a good sign. “No,” he said, “although that might be next. If you’re not a shooter, what are you doing here?”

  If I could have thought of one, I probably would have served him some line of bullshit about wanting to follow in his family footsteps or some similarly faux-noble motivation, but I figured he might as well know where I was coming from. He was by far my best-ever chance at actually making it to the Olympics, but I wasn’t going to try to live some elaborate lie for the next three years. He could take it or leave it, and if he was going to dump me as a potential prodigy, it might as well be now, I figured, while I still had time to learn how to paddle a canoe or ride a BMX bike or something similarly implausible.

  “First off,” I said, “I wasn’t lying in my e-mail.”

  “You weren’t?” he asked. “So you do have a passion for shooting that won’t be denied, you’re just scared of guns?”

  “Okay, that part was a lie.”

  “It was pretty much the main part.”

  “I know. What I mean is, I do have a mad, lifelong passion to go to the Olympics.” I gulped, then forged ahead. “Mostly because I want to be around guys who have bodies like Olympic swimmers and Olympic gymnasts. And I suck at all the other sports I’ve tried.”

  “I see,” he said. “And shooting’s not a ‘real’ sport, right? ‘They don’t work out like swimmers do. They don’t fly around like gymnasts. There aren’t even any balls—how hard can it be?’”

  “Well…”

  “Well,” he mimicked, holding up his free hand, “I’ve been shooting since I was a little kid, I’ve heard it before. Here’s the thing: the pressure? The level of competition? If you think it’s less intense than other sports, you’ll never make it out of my backyard. You’ve got to have a level head, a steady hand, and you’ve got to be able to shoot a housefly out of the air from across the room in front of an audience. Some of them are cheering you on, sure, but the rest of them are praying you’ll miss so their guy can win. The pressure is so real it’s physical, and even in your first competition you’re gonna be up against people who’ve been shooting for twenty, thirty, maybe fifty years. I’m not a superstar Olympic hero, but I have a reputation, here in Europe and in the international community, and I’m not putting my name on your product unless you can at least shoot at the broad side of a barn without embarrassing me.”

  “No, of course not,” I said. “I understand. You’re right. I’ve never shot before. But I want into the Olympics in the worst way. I’m dying to learn if you’re willing to teach me.”

  He pursed his lips and gave me another, more skeptical once-over. “Here’s what I see,” he told me. “You’re cute, you’re family, and you’ve at least got enough dedication to get on an airplane and come here. I’m not making any promises, but if you’ll make a real effort, and if you have any skills, I’ll see what we can do.”

  I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until it whooshed out of me, and I smiled so big I laughed. I threw my arms around his elegant neck and squeezed. “Thank you,” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, laughing too. He handed me the rifle again, and helped me shoulder it correctly. “Now,” he announced in what I would come to think of as his coach voice, “the first rule of shooting is the most important one.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And what’s that?”

  “Never lie again to someone with a houseful of guns who’s a better shot than you are.”

  He grinned, I exhaled, and thus began my first shooting practice.

  * * * *

  To Marcel’s relief, and my own amazement, I didn’t suck. I’m not trying to act like I was setting the world of competitive shooting ablaze by the end of that first practice, mind, but I was shortly able to tell the trigger from the sight, and I hit the target as often as not, once I got a feel for the weight of the rifle. My absolute best round at the end of the week Marcel said would have earned me maybe millionth place at the Olympics had they been held that weekend, but he did say that I shouldered my rifle like a natural, and I took direction well. After I begged him to say it, he conceded that he saw sparks of potential, and he didn’t put me on a plane back to L.A., which was, at the end of the day, all I really cared about.

  Marcel’s greatest strength, and one of his Olympic medals, was in the Men’s Three Position, wherein shooters compete from the standing, kneeling, and prone position in the same event. He excelled from the prone position, but wanted me to at least get an idea of how to shoot and what to shoot at before he tried to teach me how to do it all lying down. I had to beg him to even demo the prone position for me, which I mostly did for the occasion to ogle the swell of his ass in the air without getting caught.

  One day, though, about a half an hour into a spectacularly unproductive practice, he stopped me. “Where is your concentration today?” he asked, noting the way I practically threw the rifle down at the first whisper of his command to ‘stop.’

  “I don’t know, Marcel, I’m sorry. This just isn’t happening for me today.”

  “Yes, well, I can see that,” he said. “Let’s take a break, maybe go for a walk. You’re not even trying to act like you care.”

  “I care, Marcel, I do. It’s just, it’s the same thing every day. Stand here, shoot at this. Now stand here again, and shoot at this again. And now“

  “
I get it,” he said, staying me with his hand. “You’re bored, is that it?”

  “Well, right at this moment…”

  “Okay,” he said. “I know what we’ll do. We’ll go for a little walk, clear your head, then when we come back, we’ll mix it up a little bit.”

  “Like, I’ll stand over there and shoot at that?”

  “Like I’ll lay you down and we can try it with you prone.”

  Well, I liked the sound of that, even if he was talking about shooting.

  But I had a hard time getting the hang of it. There was a fair bit of Wait, do what with my elbow? and I thought I was doing that with my knee before he eventually lowered himself to the floor and snuggled up next to me.

  “See, I kinda like this,” I teased. “Is there a team event?”

  “They’re not that kind of Olympics,” he joked. “Scoot over and give me the rifle.”

  I complied, and he flew up onto his elbows, instantly assuming a photo-perfect position like a pointer dog in an old cartoon. “Like this,” he said, sliding the rifle over to me.

  I took the rifle—”Like this?”—and replicated his position, with some effort, exactly. Or so I thought, before he collapsed onto the floor laughing.

  “What am I doing wrong?” I asked, rolling over onto my side.

  “I don’t know,” he laughed, “but you sure keep doing it. Here,” he said, beckoning for the rifle. “I’ll do it again. You climb up onto my back, see if you can sight it with me, at least see what you’re going for.”

  “Um, okay,” I agreed, making my best not-getting-hot face.

  Again, like something in a pop-up book, he took the position instinctively, then said, “Okay, up you get.”

  I put a hand between his shoulders and leaned in. “Like this?”

  “No, not like that,” he huffed. “Get up on my back, put your knee on mine, put your elbow where mine is, and come look at the sight with me.”

  “Um…”

  “I’m not made of glass, Beau, climb up there. Isn’t your whole mission to be climbing on top of as many Olympic athletes as possible?”

  I laughed. I mean, it was, but a cousin wasn’t necessarily on my list, no matter how long-lost. But he had said that my knack to follow directions was an attribute, and so up I scrambled. He was the coach, after all.

  It took me a second of sliding and nudging around to line up, at which point my front was rubbing pretty definitely against his rear. He felt it, too, because every time more blood surged into my boner, he pressed his plump rump against it, which shortly facilitated an infinite loop of surging and pressing from which there was generally only one escape. “Knock it off,” he scolded, bucking me gently. “Now come here; put your face by mine, I want you to see this.”

  What I saw was a glittering emerald future reflected in the greenest pair of eyes in which I’d ever wanted to swim. We were forehead to forehead, and I knew he wanted me to sight the target with him, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from his, and his refusal to look away was unhelpful. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again—he was trying to keep up the coach patter, but no advice seemed to issue forth. Every part of me was pressed against a part of him, and a current blew through me like lightning through a rod. He smelled of lemongrass and leather, of armpit and shooting range floor, of clean teeth and a dirty mind. His eyes seemed to expand as he leaned impossibly closer, inviting—no, urging—me to tumble into them, so much that I actually felt myself starting to fall. Without processing the fact that I had nowhere to go—I was already on the floor—I reached out to steady myself on the nearest stable object, which happened to be Marcel’s wrist. Which happened to startle his right hand to contract, which happened to fire a shot from two inches away from our heads into space. We both barked in surprise and, once we managed to gather up our hearts from the floor of the shooting gallery to which they had leapt through our throats at the sound of the wayward shot, we dissolved in laughter.

  Ever the pro, he had hit the target, but my concentration was shot for the day.

  * * * *

  Once it was exposed to the light of day on the floor of the shooting range, my attraction to Marcel flourished, even in chilly Luxembourg, like a wild tropical vine. It grew, it spread, it climbed the walls, and, hack at it though I might, it would not slow its advance. He was the only other person I saw most days, and I never grew tired of looking at him.

  And what was there to be sick of? Not the flat butterscotch belly that he showcased every morning, padding into my room in flannel pajama pants with my first cup of coffee. “Café au lit,” he would sing after two small raps on the door; coffee in bed. Certainly not the jiggle of the junk in his trunk when he’d pad back to the kitchen. He was all business on the range, but when he would yell my name like it was a swear word—Beau!—there was always praise attached: You can hit this target with your eyes closed. Focus! And after practice, supper was always a masterpiece. His cooking was unadorned and wholesome, everything local and grass-fed or hand-churned, and the man could turn five ingredients into a three-course feast in fifteen minutes without ever setting down his wineglass.

  Like all Luxembourgers, Marcel spoke a slew of languages, and had a kind word for everyone who crossed his path, be it the teenaged paean to Teutonic Beauty that worked in town at the post office, or the old country auntie who brought us our cheese in an oxcart two afternoons a week. He spoke only French with his mother, and his English was colloquial and effortless, but he also spoke unaccented German, passable Dutch, and elaborately formal Korean—Seoul being a strong supporter and frequent host of shooting championships. In town and often on the telephone he’d speak the startling mishmash of Flemish, German, and Gobbledygook that is Luxembourgish, which it became his favorite after-dinner ritual to try to teach me. He’d ask me a question in Luxembourgish and I’d laugh at my complete inability to pick out even the simplest of words, even as he was pointing at—or, more often, vigorously shaking—the answer.

  “You want to wear a Luxembourg flag on your back in London, I will teach you something,” he would vow. Grinning; “Have you no national pride?”

  “‘National pride?’ It’s been my ‘nation’ for six months.”

  “You could at least learn to say, ‘I am ashamed not to speak Luxembourgish,’” he’d scold.

  “I’d be more ashamed to speak Luxembourgish,” I’d tease, knowing it would instigate a wrestling match that invariably ended with both of us in a tangle on the sectional sofa, watching A Fish Called Wanda or Slumdog Millionaire dubbed in Luxembourgish on the country’s one artsy television channel, and sharing a pre-packed pudding cup from the Monoprix in town.

  But I hadn’t come to Luxembourg to fall in love, I had to remind myself, and certainly not with my cousin. I had come to open up my access to a world of sexy jocks, and when the European speed skating championships came to Luxembourg, I leapt at the opportunity to get in some practice in that arena as well.

  Tickets were easily had, and there was nothing stopping a dedicated fan from hanging over the side of the arena wall all afternoon in the name of choosing the exactly right ass upon which to hit. As big, muscular asses went, I found that I was rather spoiled for choice, as even the otherwise narrow skaters had them, and so I moved on to reviewing other attributes, of which a hulking Norwegian distance skater named Peder had dozens, not the least of which was his propensity for hitting on tall, skinny Americans after winning his third gold medal of the championships.

  With all three of his events behind him and a spot on the Norwegian team in Vancouver guaranteed, he was ready to party, and I was only too happy to show him the local color. A drink here, a jazz combo there, a late-night snack that would have felled a farmhand, and he was anxious to move on to the clothing-optional portion of the evening’s program.

  By the time I had the lascivious, lantern-jawed giant in my bedroom, though, the only real “option” was whether to take the time to fumble with buttons and zippers, or just to rip the clothe
s from our bodies in shreds and get after it. He was wide and solid, clumsy and rough, like trying to love on a phone booth, but he was eager and submissive and very shortly he was on his knees literally whimpering for an ass-full of it. The vast, undimpled shelf of muscle and meat seemed to have its own gravitational pull, as my sprung, steely cock strained against its moorings below my belly, howling its intention to plunge deeply and repeatedly into him whether I wanted to tag along or not.

  Not that I put up much of a fight, and once I was astride him, his grunts spurred me on. Big as I am, I couldn’t go deep enough; frenzied as I was, I couldn’t hit it hard enough—he yowled for more, more, more! until I lost track of how many loads I put inside him. It was surely no wonder to anyone who had had the pleasure of fucking this insatiable tiger that he had set European and World Records in his distance events—the kid had stamina like I’d never seen, and I bounced on him like he was a pogo stick until I collapsed in a heap, spent. I didn’t so much pass out as offer myself up as a human sacrifice to the gods of sleep. And a poor one, at that, as I doubt I had much life force left in me, all of my insides having been sucked into Peder’s glorious, gluttonous hole.

  Whether I was fast asleep or still dead was something of a grey area when there came two quick raps at the door. “Café au lit,” sang Marcel, turning the handle of my bedroom door.

  “Um, just a second!” I croaked, struggling to unearth at least part of my body from beneath 230 pounds of drooling Norwegian. I had gotten as far as falling out of the bed when Marcel sailed into the room.

  “Good morning,” he chirped, setting his course for the lump in the sheets on the bed, before he clocked me sprawled on the floor and stopped so short that my cup clattered in its contrasting saucer. “Oh,” he said, and the stony grimace that chased the smile off of his mug knocked the wind out of me, so that all I could do was squirm on the floor and stammer unintelligibly, wishing with fervor that I didn’t have such grandstanding morning wood. “I see…” he muttered.