Boys of Summer

by Steve Berman

  “Günaydın!” Luke chirps, one of three Turkish words he remembers, dropping his hands to where his dick yearns to burst through his boardies’ Velcro fly.

  “Good morning.” Sitting up, Levent stretches and yawns. It’s even harder to make anything out with him blocking the sun entirely, just a glowy nimbus around the Levent-shaped shadow. “Your father decided not to wake you. It is pleasant to sleep under open sky and stars—yes? Would you like coffee?”

  “I don’t think anybody else is up.” Luke means Altan Efendi’s, the captain’s, wife, who served him coffee yesterday morning. Luke means he doesn’t want Levent to disappear into the galley, though it would be wonderful if he moved just enough so Luke could see him properly.

  Stretching again, Levent stands. Luke half imagines he can make out something stiff making interesting folds in the stretchy fabric of Levent’s trunks. “Roisin Hanım is happy for me to make my own coffee,” Levent says, turning toward the stern. Luke is even more sure of Levent’s morning wood when he casually adjusts it with his big left hand. Sunlight catches the tattoos on the inside of his forearm, making the blossoms glisten like fresh paint. “You prefer it without sugar, I remember,” Levent says and starts away.

  Luke watches him go—that ass! Red fabric straining to contain the lush muscularity of it. “Teşekkür ederim!” Luke gasps.

  Looking back, Levent grins broadly, sun glinting on wet teeth. “No problem,” he says like an American, and keeps going.

  Luke imagines himself saying Augh! as he collapses facedown on the sunbed, but really he doesn’t utter a sound. He’s touched a few nice asses. Well, two. Wanted to do more. Four months ago he thought Douglas was working up to suggesting they do more, but what he was really working up to was breaking up. Breaking Luke’s heart.

  Not really. Bruising it a bit.

  Luke’s dad thought Luke’s heart was broken. At least that’s the only reason Luke can think of why Sam insisted his seventeen-year-old son come along on this trip, this Blue Voyage. Luke hadn’t been at all sure about a two-week Turkish vacation with his dad and new stepmom, but he wasn’t offered a choice. It would have to be better than the alternative: staying with his mom and her prick of a husband. He wonders if Perla had a choice. She’s far from a wicked stepmother, and as best he can tell likes him almost as much as he likes her, but it is pretty much her honeymoon.

  They’re down below him right now, in the master cabin, his dad and Perla. Sleeping or…not sleeping. Which isn’t anywhere Luke wants to go.

  When he abruptly sits up, he thinks he hears water running—splashing. Standing, he looks aft past the mainmast, through the wide windows and open door of the deckhouse. Levent’s standing at the taffrail, standing tall and stalwart on the cushioned bench with his back to Luke, right hand on hip, left hidden. After a moment the splashing stops and Luke vividly imagines him shaking himself off, tucking himself in, tying up the drawstring of his trunks. Before he can turn around, Luke looks away.

  No way he’s brave enough to piss over the side but now the thought’s in his head, the need pressing at his bladder. When he gets to the deckhouse door, Levent’s already inside, hovering over the galley stove. He flashes another big grin as Luke edges past and down the companionway.

  In the tiny head next to his cabin, Luke does what he needs to do, brushes his teeth, washes his face. No shower, but he swipes deodorant under his arms. Before he can stop himself, he spritzes himself with the really expensive French cologne Douglas gave him for Christmas, when they were still boyfriends. It’s too much. He knows it. If Levent’s gay (he probably isn’t), if he’s the least bit attracted to Luke (how could he be?), if Luke can muster the nerve to make a move (like that’s going to happen), how do they manage to get up to anything interesting on a sixty-foot boat under the eyes of Levent’s bosses and Sam and Perla? Plus, while sex would have to be fantastic with a guy as handsome as Levent, there’s no chance of any kind of relationship. Luke’s going home to California in less than two weeks.

  He climbs back up the companionway. The coffee must be done because Levent isn’t in the upper cabin. On the stern deck under the canvas awning, a tray sits on the bench below the taffrail, just where Levent stood to piss. But no Levent.

  Then Luke hears footsteps overhead. He ducks through the door, looks up. Crouched on the deckhouse roof, Levent beams down at him. “Coffee is served, sir. I will be down momentarily.” He’s holding a pitcher, watering a clay pot of something as green as the foliage painted under the skin of his left arm.

  “What’s that?”

  Levent inspects the shrubby plant as if he has no idea. “Keklikotu. Cooking herb. In English, I think…oregano? Good luck for sailors: earth and herb from Efendi’s garden to ensure we return home safe. Also Hanım uses it in the excellent meals she prepares.”

  Pointing behind Levent toward the flying bridge, Luke asks, “What about those?”

  Levent glances over his shoulder. On either side of the bridge stand two old olive-oil tins overflowing with fiercely red geraniums. “Just flowers, for beauty. Those I irrigated first.”

  “And that?”

  That is a round, shallow, closely woven basket perched on the edge of the roof two steps from the keklikotu. The first evening aboard, returning from a trip to the head, Luke saw Roisin Hanım up there, carefully scooping dirt from a bucket into the basket. She was murmuring something Luke couldn’t hear—he had more trouble anyway with her Irish brogue than her husband’s or Levent’s accents, and maybe she was speaking Turkish. Or Gaelic. As he watched, she sprinkled water over the soil, then scattered seeds from four different packets. She seemed completely intent on what she was doing, entirely oblivious of anything but earth, water, seeds. Feeling obscurely nervous, Luke didn’t say anything and moved away before she looked up, joining his dad and Perla on the foredeck. With Sam’s amused permission, Perla poured Luke a glass of Turkish white wine.

  “That”—Levent doesn’t even look, his expression blank, his voice flat—“is woman’s business. Hanım’s business.” He jerks his chin up and back, a quick gesture Luke’s already learned means the same in Turkey as an American headshake. “I am not to know. Not to inquire. Not to touch.”

  “Oh.” Weird.

  But Levent shrugs off whatever disturbs him and smiles again, crinkling the fine skin around his eyes. “Coffee?” Setting the pitcher aside, he swings nimbly down the ladder rungs bolted to the bulkhead. Somehow he misses the last step and staggers onto the deck, crashing one shoulder into Luke’s chest. Startled, Luke grabs hold to steady him, then doesn’t want to let go. He’d thought Levent was taller but it must have been an illusion of his beauty: they’re the same height.

  “Pardon my clumsiness!”

  “No—” Luke doesn’t want to let go. The warmth of Levent’s flesh, slightly greasy with sweat and yesterday’s sunscreen, sears his skin. He thinks he can feel Levent’s heart beating. He knows he can feel a woody working up in his own shorts. He lets go. “No problem.”

  Grasping his hand warmly, Levent leads him to the bench, sits him down, sits himself down really close, hips and thighs touching. Dumbly, Luke wishes his boardies were as short as Levent’s trunks so it would be naked thigh to naked thigh. Levent releases his hand, but it’s only to reach over Luke’s lap to the tray. “Coffee! I remembered: no sugar. I hope you like it.”

  Luke can’t taste anything but the sweat-sunscreen-saltwater fragrance of Levent fighting with his own cologne, but he sips from the little cup and says, “Very nice.”

  “Excellent.” Holding his own cup with his right hand, Levent lays the left on Luke’s leg, just above the knee. The visible fragments of tattoo look as bright as the hibiscus blossoms printed on Luke’s boardies. “Are you enjoying your Blue Voyage, Luke Bey?”

  Before they left California, Perla had sat Luke down for a little talk. She knows the Turkish Aegean coast well—her mother is an archaeologist specializing in the Bronze Age Lycian city-states, so Perla had spe
nt pretty much every childhood summer in Muğla province. It wasn’t archaeology she wanted to talk about, though. It was Turkish men. “They’re really friendly,” she said, “really affectionate and touchy-feely among themselves. So you’ll see lots of very handsome men holding hands and hugging, but you absolutely can’t assume they’re gay. It’s a different culture. If you get friendly with some kid he’ll want to touch you, be close to you, but it’s never about wanting to be your boyfriend or anything like that. Okay? It’s different social norms, different conceptions of personal space.”

  So Luke knows he shouldn’t make any inferences out of Levent getting so close. God, how he wants to, though. Throat tight, he says, “I’m having a great time.”

  “That is good. This morning, I believe, we will sail a few more kilometers down the coast to a protected cove with a pleasant beach. No hotels and package tourists like here—” Levent waves his coffee cup vaguely toward shore, where rows of green canvas parasols and folded sunbeds mar golden sand, waiting for tourists from the hotels above the beach to descend. “Tomorrow, Perla Hanım and Sam Bey plan an excursion to ancient ruins a little inland.”

  “Perla’s mother is working at those ruins, I think.”

  They’re having a conversation, Levent and Luke, which is somehow astonishing until it’s just a conversation. Before Roisin Hanım comes up from crew quarters below the stern deck, Luke learns that Levent isn’t from Didim, the Esin’s home port, but his father is and Levent’s known Altan all his life, crewed for him on the gulet every summer since he turned thirteen. The rest of the year, he lives with his family in İzmir. His English is so good because, except for Turkish literature and history, all instruction at his high school was in English. He graduated a month ago—he’s just a year older than Luke. They laugh, amazed, when they figure out they share the same birthday.

  Luke remembers only now and then that he’s totally infatuated. When Levent’s face falls into brief repose, his features as classically regular and handsome as an ancient marble bust of Adonis. Or when he leaps up to make more coffee and half turns to beckon for Luke to come with him, the torsion and symmetry of his nearly nude body as elegant as the Diskobolos, but alive and human. When the sun hits his eyes at the right angle and Luke sees the opaque black rings around his irises, gleaming, lucent caramel brown bleeding into golden green mandalas around the pupils. Sees sun glistening on thick black stubble rising through the flushed gold skin of his cheeks, chin, above his finely molded lips. Beautiful.

  Levent interrupts his latest reverie with a question and Luke explains he’s lived with his dad the last four years because he doesn’t get along with his mother’s husband. He doesn’t say that Roger (he won’t call the man his stepfather) is a homophobic born-again asshole and he despises the woman his mother’s turned into since she married Roger.

  “Have you thought about college?” Levent asks out of nowhere.

  “Not really. Not yet. Why?”

  “Because…” Levent looks away. Luke’s struck dumb by the impression his profile makes against pale blue sky, then dumber when Levent squeezes his hand and goes on, “Because this autumn I will be attending the University of California at Berkeley.”

  Half a minute of utter shock later, Luke blurts, “That’s half a mile from my house. I mean—less than a kilometer.”

  “I know.” Still gazing out to sea, Levent smiles very slowly. “Not that it was so very close, that is, but that you live in Berkeley. It would be lovely for me to have a friend nearby when I go to live in your country. Shall we be friends, Luke Bey?”

  There’s no hope of throttling down the insane hope pounding in Luke’s chest. “Yes.”

  Levent squeezes his hand even harder. “Of course, I would wish to be your friend for this short time that you are aboard Esin, but perhaps in California we may become very good friends.”

  “I think that would be…excellent, Levent Bey.”

  Chuckling at the Turkish honorific, Levent turns the full force of his grin on Luke. “And then, you see, it would be quite sad for me if after a year my good friend were to go away to Princeton or Yale.”

  Brain racing, Luke’s been thinking the same thing. Not Princeton or Yale, his SATs and grades aren’t that stellar, but the little he’s ever contemplated college has always involved running far far away from the Bay Area. Maybe he can get into Berkeley. San Francisco State for one safety school and, and…and he’s almost certain Levent is just about to kiss him.

  “Good morning, boys.”

  Roisin Hanım’s cheery greeting makes Luke flinch and he wants to think he hears dismay in Levent’s “Günaydın, Hanım.”

  “Levent made coffee for you, Luke? Lovely. Did you sleep well?”

  “V-very well, thank you.”

  And then Levent’s jumping up to help Roisin with breakfast—“Turkish breakfast or Irish breakfast?” she asks of the air. And then Altan Efendi is pacing around checking out every square millimeter of his beloved gulet—he clucks with mild disapproval over the dew-damp blanket Luke left crumpled on his sunbed and hangs it over the foremast’s boom to dry. And then, slightly bleary-looking, Luke’s dad appears from below, plops down on the bench next to his son—not as close as Levent—and asks earnestly if it was okay for him not to wake Luke last night and insist he go below. Luke assures him it was just fine. He’ll probably want to sleep on deck every night it doesn’t rain. Then Perla, carrying a book, radiating calm pleasantness. Then breakfast, which Luke assumes must be Turkish because he can’t imagine olives being part of an Irish breakfast.

  It’s a jolly meal, full of plans for the day, though Luke never says much of anything and realizes after a bit that he goes perceptibly blank every time he looks at Levent. So with a certain amount of conscious effort he stops doing it. He was never so moony over Douglas.

  But Douglas had been loudly out since seventh grade, so there was never the same kind of doubt. He waited to pursue Luke until after Luke came out years later, so no doubt there either. And Douglas was, is, merely cute, not as beautiful as a demigod.

  Luke catches Perla peering at him, wonders if she’s guessed he’s doing what she warned him not to. Wonders if she’d been on the Esin before and Levent is exactly who she was warning him about.

  That’s a horrible thought. He won’t allow it toehold in his brain. He wants to be Levent’s friend. More would be awesome but you don’t turn down an offer of friendship just because the guy isn’t interested in messing around. Luke and Douglas are still friends.

  Sort of.

  Into a moment of silence, he says, “Will there be time for a swim before we set sail?”

  Altan appears about to hem and haw, but Roisin says something in Turkish, then, “We’re in no hurry, surely. But the cove where we plan to stop for lunch is much more pleasant”— she gestures toward the now crowded beach—“so perhaps just a quick dip. I won’t need help, Levent, why don’t you join Luke? Refresh yourself before my husband puts you to work.”

  Levent offers her the intoxicating splendor of his smile. “Teşekkür ederim, Roisin Hanım.”

  Half a minute later, both boys tumble over the side, crash into the deep blue water. When Luke surfaces, ears ringing, he hears a jocular “Watch out for sharks!” from the railing far above and flips his dad a cheerful bird.

  Then something grabs hold of his ankles and he’s going under again. He knows it has to be Levent, so he doesn’t panic, but his mouth was open and his lungs empty, so he does panic when salt water floods his sinuses. Looking up when Luke starts to thrash, Levent goes wide-eyed. He lets go immediately. One powerful frog kick later, his arms are around Luke’s chest, two, and both heads break the surface again and Luke’s coughing on his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry!” Levent bleats, sounding really frightened. “I’m sorry! Are you all right?”

  “I’ll—” Luke coughs again. “I’ll be fine in a minute.”

  “I’m so sorry. I won’t let you go.”

  Luke kn
ows he ought to put his hands on Levent’s head and push him under, that’s what a roughhousing straight boy would do, but he’s queer and though his throat feels flayed it’s just so lovely to be safe in Levent’s embrace. “I’ll be fine,” he grumbles again, “you just surprised me,” and turns his head to rest his cheek in the crook of Levent’s shoulder.

  Levent murmurs something. Luke catches his name but the rest is Turkish garble. “What?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  Lifting his head to catch Levent’s eyes, Luke demands, “No, what did you say?”

  Levent blinks. “I said, it is my very great pleasure to hold you like this, my friend.” And then Levent lets go.

  *

  He isn’t convinced he actually fell asleep, but what he remembers was awful. He was thirsty, so thirsty, in a place where there was no water, just dust. An endless ocean of sepia dust broken only by distant outcroppings that might be isolated mountains, might be stupendous buildings. The air was so thick and sere, the oppressive brown sky so low, he couldn’t really see, but he felt that if he could reach one of them he’d find something to drink. Eternal ripples and waves of dust brushed over his ankles as he slogged, billowed up to his knees. He couldn’t see his feet. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he would eventually trip, but it was a dream so it was a surprise.

  He stumbled and fell headlong on top of something that wasn’t dust, but dust puffed up all around, choking. Voices like sandpaper whistled, We mourn. We mourn him, cut down in youth and beauty. The fall knocked tears from his gritty eyes, though he felt certain he was too parched even to spit. He tried to lift his head so the tears would run into his mouth, but the springs were already stopped up again. Desperate, he was ready to search with his tongue for damp residue in the soil or wet spots on stone, but he hadn’t fallen on soil or stone. He’d tripped over a corpse.