Boca Dreams

by Scudder James Jr

  Stephen avoided eye contact with Aaron, who seemed to do the same. Too intense? Too dramatic? Too true?

  “Now, we’re done. We apologize.” She nodded at Marissa and Sena. “But we believe in your happiness.” Elspeth stood, followed by the other two. “You are both too handsome, too charming, and too sweet not to be happy. Don’t waste this moment. My kids of course hate me fixing their lives. Let me help fix yours.” She finished her iced tea. “The Seaboard Tenth Reunion Planning Committee is rooting for you.”

  They left.

  The busy reception was oddly quiet.

  “I didn’t ask them to do that,” said Aaron.

  “I didn’t think you did.”

  “But I’m glad they did.”

  “So am I.”

  Could it have been any more strangely perfect, Aaron sitting right there across from him?

  “Do you have any idea how amazing you look sitting there in the sun?” Stephen asked. “I’ve never forgotten your eyes.”

  “Should we walk?”

  OF COURSE there was only one place to go.

  At the pond, Stephen worried if Aaron was suddenly the insecure faculty kid again. Was he, himself, a desperately overcompensating girly boy? Could they be twenty-eight-year-old adults, less concerned with righting the past than living in the present? Preparing for the future?

  They weren’t talking. Just walking.

  Of course they made it to the water.

  Of course they kissed.

  Made out. Eyes open, eyes closed. Holding each other. It was better than they’d dreamt. Natural, peaceful, the overwhelming feeling that everything was right.

  “I don’t want to go back yet,” Aaron said as they crossed the road to campus.

  Stephen asked if he meant back to the Holiday Fête, or back to his life in Miami. He said both and suggested dinner in Boca, just the two of them.

  HOLY CRAP, it was a good, old-fashioned date, on the patio of the Italian restaurant with the ubiquitous Boca fountains and palm trees, given the time of year, wrapped in colored lights. It was that perfectly odd combination of Boca Raton with its mix of well-dressed retired folks, the fancy-pants people of all ages who made their money God knows how and flashed it around, and normalish people who simply could afford to live someplace comfortable. Aaron looked great in a dark blazer that, close up, revealed a rich pattern. Stephen wondered how his own shirt was fitting. It’d been a while since he’d dressed for a date. Unprompted, Aaron told him he looked great.

  “You’ve always been adorable,” Aaron said, swirling his glass of wine. “I like how you’ve aged, happier, more relaxed, less trying to be the cool, hunky rower, gentleman golfer you worked so hard at.” He smiled. “I assume you still golf.”

  “Nope,” said Stephen. “I still like being outside. But more natural, less landscaped.”

  “The Everglades?

  “No. I love being on the water. Rowing, sailing, whatever. I’ve got friends with cool boats. You should come to Tampa.”

  “Sure. And you should come to Miami. You’d love the view from my apartment.”

  Stephen drank in everything about Aaron. He especially loved hearing what he’d once loved about his old band and being a rocker. About college and B-school and his thrill in helping people realize their dreams.

  Aaron said he loved picturing Stephen in Chile. He went on to explain that he was inspired that Stephen had taken off, left California and the US, convinced that he needed a new stage, a new cast of characters. Aaron said he loved that Stephen loved teaching English and helping folks learn how to express who they were. He loved the idea of the language school in Tampa.

  They made out in Aaron’s car. They felt like they were seventeen again, but this time they weren’t faking it with their dates.

  IN THE Alumni House courtyard, they went straight for the big openmouthed kiss without foreplay.

  “Is it terrible if I don’t want us to go to the same room?” Stephen asked.

  “I’m not staying at the Alumni House. I’m with my parents at the edge of campus. I’d rather not take you there. Your room is perfect.”

  Stephen clarified that he didn’t want to spend the night together.

  For the first time since leaving the Alumni House bar, Aaron looked uncertain, confused. “All night long, I’ve been thinking about being alone with you.”

  “All I want is to be alone with you,” Stephen said. “Except I don’t want this to be rebound sex. I want Victor to have nothing to do with our first night.”

  “I hear you,” said Aaron. “But Victor has nothing to do with how long I’ve wanted you.”

  Stephen grabbed Aaron and kissed him. “We’ll see each other at brunch.” They kissed again, and Stephen headed inside, turned for a quick wave, and saw Aaron leaning against a palm tree.

  The Alumni House door thumped shut, heavy, like the thick, old wood that it was but producing the weird suction sound of high-quality twenty-first-century renovations.

  What the fuck?

  Stephen yanked the door open and scrambled back outside.

  Aaron was still against the palm tree and looking at the Alumni House entrance. One of the fountains streamed behind him. Stephen walked over and planted a wet one on his lips.

  AT FIRST the walk to the room was romantic and slow. None of Stephen’s fantasies about getting naked with Aaron prepared him for the night. They had already kissed. They’d made out that afternoon at the pond, and in the car, and outside the Alumni House while saying their false good night. Stephen had a sense of what it felt like to be in Aaron’s sturdy arms and stroke his shoulders. He knew his stomach slipped tight into his waist. He knew his smell and the warmth of his neck. He could swim forever in those eyes.

  Holy shit, thought Stephen. Was this really happening? Had he fallen into the vortex of his old fantasies? How much spunk had he shot over the years thinking about Aaron and their night before graduation? How much had he dreamt about what they should have done? Even after he gained experience, he still found himself going back to scenarios of what could have happened that night. Now, there he was, adult Aaron with those stunning eyes, that knowing smile. Aaron who’d been around the block. Who knew himself and had become a sweet, focused, dynamic man. A sexy man walking beside Stephen through the Alumni House.

  In Stephen’s room, their shirts were off, chests pressed together, mouth on mouth, mouth on neck. So close. Arms wrapping, squeezing. Stephen grabbed Aaron’s hands, put them on his head, and gazed at the perfect expanse of his pecks and stomach, appreciating the full, unobstructed view of his chest, the combination of show-off pose and vulnerable with hands temporarily out of commission. He dug his nose into his pits and kissed. Huh? Armpits, he hadn’t done that before. Stephen wanted Aaron to know that he wanted every inch of him.

  Aaron busted free, dug his mouth against Stephen’s and half bit his neck. They kissed more, but Stephen shot his hands around Aaron’s waist, shoved his hands down, and worked the jeans off.

  Stephen stepped back. Holy crap. Those boxer briefs were perfect, a sheen of white over Aaron’s sturdy thighs, the roundest butt, and, damn, the fullest basket. He wanted to rip the underwear off but also wanted to remember them forever, the perfect presentation of the perfect gift.

  Aaron must have been told about his particular magic, because, at that moment, in nothing but the sheen of boxer briefs, he seemed to stand taller, wider, inviting, fully aware of his gifts, and hungry. He cupped his junk and smiled at Stephen. From anyone else, it could have been annoyingly arrogant. But that moment, that night after that day, it was the most stunning offer ever.

  Stephen approached and took Aaron in a slow hug. Their knees kneaded into the other’s basket, Aaron’s in the perfectly packaged display, Stephen’s straining his pants.

  Stephen cupped Aaron’s gift with one hand. With his other, he reached around and grabbed his ass. Stephen went to his knees. He smelled and kissed the boxer briefs, pressed his face into the sheen of them. Th
at smell… that hard, pushing arch… he rubbed his forehead, cheeks, chin, over Aaron’s constrained cock. He drenched the fabric in his saliva. Smelled the precum. He poked around with his tongue for a way in past the fabric, but so tight, they offered no entrance, so he dug his fingers into the elastic waistband and pulled them off.

  Aaron let out a moan.

  Stephen looked at Aaron’s cock bobbing there, beautiful and unexpectedly thick, and turned to the right. Stephen reached out and touched it. Aaron was hard. Stephen was hard inside his pants. This was real.

  Stephen took him in his mouth. He was hungry. He savored the cock, the smooth head, oh, that delicious, smooth head. He loved the twin scratches, one of cock making contact with the back of his throat, the other of pubes at his nose. He undid his own pants but quickly moved his hand away from himself because he’d explode with too much attention.

  “Stephen, get up here.” Aaron lifted him up and pulled him in close, Stephen’s khakis falling to the floor, underwear gone, then shirt off, totally naked, their dicks pressed together. They pulled each other tighter.

  Then they were on the bed.

  One thing Stephen wanted to be sure of was that they kept going back to kissing and appreciating, that nothing was like his first time with Victor, when it was only fast and furious up against the wall, Stephen pounding Victor’s ass, lifting him to his toes as he slammed, again and again, annoyed at the guy who’d been mocking him throughout dinner. His one and only fuck of Victor.

  At first Stephen was nervous that there’d be fucking, because he didn’t want any similarity to sex with Victor. At least Stephen didn’t want to fuck Aaron their first time together, like he had Victor. But he also wasn’t excited about Aaron fucking him, because the routine of getting fucked missionary by Victor was all sex had been the last year.

  Stephen had the wisdom not to say anything to Aaron in the moment, but… fuck it, he finally thought, Victor didn’t own fucking. When he’d figured that out, he took Aaron’s cock out of his mouth and slipped a lubed finger up his own ass. He rolled a condom down Aaron, stroked him, straddled him, and guided Aaron’s dick into his ass.

  Riding Aaron broke the spell. He would never think about Victor during sex again.

  BREATHLESS, SWEATY, glistening…. Stephen loved Aaron resting his head on his chest. The room was quiet, the outside security lights through the blinds, soft.

  “I’m glad,” started Aaron until his voice broke. “I’m glad we didn’t fool around that night before graduation.”

  “Why?”

  “We wouldn’t have known how to do most of what we just did.”

  “But it would have been sweet.”

  “True.”

  “But fast.”

  “Definitely true.”

  “I think we would have spooked ourselves back then,” said Stephen.

  “Probably.”

  “Definitely.”

  Aaron sat up and kissed him. “But we’re ready now, right?”

  Stephen kissed back.

  OF COURSE the dining room was full by the time Stephen and Aaron made it down for brunch. It wasn’t another movie-moment entrance, just Marissa greeting them while looking over the rim of a coffee cup. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you for listening,” added Elspeth.

  Sena didn’t say anything, only grabbed an apple and winked.

  Officially the Seaboard students were on winter break, but enough lived in the area to help out at the Holiday Fête. That was why a dozen well-scrubbed adolescents, guys and girls, appeared in the center of the dining room and started singing.

  Stephan had told Aaron that he’d always felt bad that the Holiday Fête happened in a school and a town with such a large Jewish population. Weren’t half the students at Seaboard Jewish? Despite the fact he’d been excited to return to Seaboard, wasn’t the Fête insensitive? Then he felt worse for not knowing that Aaron himself was half-Jewish, through his mother, and who knew about his dad’s side? Some of the first Europeans in Mexico had been Jews fleeing Europe and reinventing themselves as Catholic in the new world. They’d been thinking about DNA testing.

  “Growing up, I used to feel left out because of the parties everyone else got to go to,” explained Aaron. “But the Holiday Fête gave everyone a party, including me.”

  “What about Chanukah?”

  “Small potatoes, and this is part of a school, not family, not Temple. This feels real.”

  The music was cool, a little bit of everything, and a mash of languages, sometimes unclear if the songs were Christian or about general happiness. And, of course, the Chanukah song from Saturday Night Live, finishing with everyone in the dining room yelling, “L’chaim.”

  “Clever,” said an older man at the next table.

  Between songs, Aaron said he knew some of the kids because he often visited his folks on campus; he wanted to tell them congratulations.

  While Aaron was gone, Elspeth refilled coffees. “It’s so nice to be too old for holiday pageants. Do you have any idea how many androgynous Tiny Tims I’ve been?”

  Acapella started as the kids disbanded from their group and spread throughout the room. In a few seconds, Stephen realized that was a familiar pop song, uncharacteristically led by a deep male voice.

  There was Aaron, in the middle of the room. Singing. He was the soloist. The whole room was into it, singing along. Clapping. Was it Stephen’s imagination or was Aaron staring at him and moving closer? Was the choir regrouping and following? Wait, was Aaron almost directly in front of him? For real?

  Stephen had already had his movie moment when he and Victor had arrived during the photoshoot. How many did one get in a lifetime? Some didn’t get any. This couldn’t be Stephen’s second during one weekend.

  “What’s best about Christmas?” the kids sang.

  “You,” replied Aaron, pointing at older ladies in the audience. “You,” he sang at Elspeth. “You.” Aaron smiled at one of the buffet servers. The music wound down for an intimate finale.

  “What’s best about Christmas,” Aaron sang quietly, calmly, right there with his beautiful eyes. He pointed at Stephen. “You.”

  The music stopped. The room applauded. Aaron kissed him on the cheek, and the young alums hooted.

  “Clever,” repeated the older man.

  “I hope that wasn’t too much,” Aaron said as he sat down. Could he have looked any sexier in his red, opened shirt?

  “Tony said I’d never hear from you again if we fooled around,” said Stephen.

  “I’m sorry Tony’s bitter. He doesn’t really know me. I don’t think he knows you, either.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  A text pinged in from Victor… I miss you. Then I’m sorry. Stephen put his phone on the table. All he could do was stare at it as if a worm had crawled out of the fruit salad.

  “Everything okay?” asked Aaron.

  “I… I’ve gotta make a call. Will you come with me?”

  “Looks like you need to be alone.”

  “Please, come.”

  OUTSIDE, BY one of the smaller fountains next to a mash of blooming orchids, Stephen put his phone on a bench, put it on speaker, and stood there with Aaron.

  “Hey, Stephen. I miss you,” said disembodied Victor.

  “You left me stranded in Boca.”

  “I won’t do that again.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I won’t, I’m sorry.”

  “What about Caleb?”

  Silence. Just the splashing fountain, nothing from Victor.

  “What about always being rude to me?”

  “You like it. I’m toughing you up.”

  “I don’t like it. Not at all. Don’t tell me it’s good for me.”

  “But you know it is.”

  “Victor, I’m not breaking up with you by text. That would be rude. I’m breaking up with you by phone. Not the best manners, but there you have it.”

  “Stephen?”

  “Victor.
I don’t want to see you again.”

  “I’ll be home tonight. I’ll let you fuck me, if that’s what you want.”

  “No.”

  “Stephen?”

  “Yesterday you texted that you could get your stuff out of my apartment by the time I got home. Please do that.”

  “Stephen?”

  “I once loved you. I don’t know why. I need to look at why I loved someone who didn’t really like me.”

  “You love me.”

  “Goodbye, Victor. Any last words? I’m about to hang up.”

  Silence.

  Stephen ended the call, put the phone in his pocket, took a deep breath, and looked at Aaron.

  STEPHEN WAS alone packing when he heard rustling at the door. Tony appeared in only running shorts. “We have an hour until checkout,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “An hour.” He slid a hand into his shorts.

  “Tony, are you serious?”

  He pushed his shorts down to the manscaped beginning of his dick hanging from the shadow of shaved pubes. Cum gutters. The edges of his abs were defined by cum gutters.

  “You look great,” said Stephen.

  “I run marathons.” He was running his hands down his sides and then in, stopping just above his junk.

  “Tony, do you know what I did last night?”

  “Everyone knows. The same thing I did five years ago with Aaron. It’s what our friend does. He might be charming today, but you’ll never hear from him again.”

  “You don’t know that.” Stephen swallowed his doubt. He knew he and Tony were different, that he had a connection to Aaron. He wasn’t just another forgettable hookup. Was he?