by Nick Nolan
His stomach clenched. He probably had no business trying out for this team, as he hadn’t practiced at all since last season ended nearly four months ago.
“You!” The coach pointed at Jeremy. “Lane four!”
Although he executed the best start he knew how, he still hit the surface with too big a splash; he’d always had trouble with his start, and so instead relied on his long, strong stroke to make up time and distance. The shock of the frigid water tensed his body, but he knew the sensation would pass quickly. He flipped onto his back, then reached behind himself, first with his left arm then his right, and the top of his head pushed a wake like a breaching submarine headed toward the target mark at the opposite wall of the pool. He swam lazily at first, letting his muscles stretch and pull as they pumped themselves with rich, warm blood. After a lap and a half, his limbs resumed the rhythm and cadence of a swimmer at one with the water.
On his third lap, he spotted a boy, two lanes over, whose butterfly pace was only slightly quicker than his own backstroke. Jeremy deepened his breaths and began pulling his arms through the water with more force, the way he knew how to make them ache. His legs kicked mechanically, as if driven by a motor; he knew his speed came from concentrating on his arm strokes and breathing. Soon he was abreast of the other, and whoever it was had apparently taken notice of his competitor and was pulling ahead. Jeremy judged the other swimmer’s reach to be longer, but no more able than his own.
But this past summer, while Jeremy had lolled around watching talk shows in his mother’s smoke-filled apartment, the athlete in lane six had been training. Hard. His lead stretched to almost half a length by the start of the seventh lap, and by the time the coach’s whistle signaled the end of the practice, Jeremy was barely able to make it to the side of the pool and lift himself out. His arms and legs shook as he toweled himself vigorously from hair to ankles.
“Not bad, except for your start,” the coach growled. But the crooked grin on the man’s face told him what he’d hoped for.
“I’m just…out of…practice.”
“Well, even out of practice I could see you were giving Carson a run for his money. What was your name again, bud?” He took the pencil from behind his ear and poised it over the clipboard.
“Jeremy Tyler.”
“Knew another Tyler once, about twenty years ago.” The coach scribbled. “Johnny Tyler, fastest freestyler in the state; think his record still stands. You’re not a relation, are you?”
“He was my father,” Jeremy beamed.
The man’s eyes snapped up to meet his. “You’re jokin’!” He squinted at Jeremy, scanning him up and down. Then the hard creases around his eyes and scowling mouth softened, and he looked suddenly gentle, like someone’s grandfather. “Good God, you are his boy!” He clapped a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, nearly knocking him into the pool. “Where the hell you been hiding? We could use you!”
“I just moved here to my aunt and uncle’s.” He wrapped his sopping towel around his hunched shoulders and shivered, in spite of the sun cresting the ridge of hills to the east.
The coach turned to the troop of boys heading to the locker room. “Men! We’ve got the son of another celebrity on our team!”
They stopped and turned, and Jeremy saw Coby in the center of the group, his easy smile melting.
“Men, this is Jeremy Tyler, the son of Ballena Beach High’s ’86 State Champion Jonathan Tyler, a.k.a. Tyler the Freestyler, who was twice the swimmer you girls will ever be!”
The boys jeered and laughed, and a few lolled over to introduce themselves. The last to pass was Coby.
“Jeremy, this is Coby Carson, our star butterfly.”
“Yeah, we met already,” he responded coldly, ignoring Jeremy’s outstretched hand for the second time in two days.
“Hey, don’t be such a prima donna, Carson. He don’t know it yet, but if he’s anything like his father, his game’s gonna be the crawl for the 800 relay, so you don’t have to worry about him snatching your crown. Now shake hands. You’re gonna work together. He’s part of the team.”
Coby obeyed. “Good to have you, dude.”
Their hands pumped each other.
“Thanks.” A grateful smile split Jeremy’s face.
“Go hit the showers. Tyler, see me in the cage before you go.”
Steam filled the air like fog. Whoops and howls echoed, and the water streaming against tile sounded like a tropical downpour. As Jeremy made his way to his locker, he glanced sideways at the assemblage of young naked men, trying to ignore how each that he passed seemed more exquisitely muscled than the last.
Coby was peeling his suit down his thighs as Jeremy approached his own locker two over. He avoided looking at him by verifying the numbers on the slip of paper with those on the lock, even though he’d already memorized them.
“Hey,” Coby said.
“Hey.”
“So what’s your best time on the backstroke?” he asked, balling up his Speedo and throwing it in his locker.
“Just under three in the 200.”
“Cool. So your dad was really a state champ?”
“Yep. But I don’t remember his time offhand.”
“So where’s he now, some 300-pound attorney?”
“He died in a car accident right after I was born.” Saying the words had no effect on him anymore, like telling someone what time it was. He slid his own suit off.
“Bummer.”
They walked to the shower area, Coby in the lead. Jeremy slyly appraised the other’s sculpted ass as he strutted in front of him with a towel in one hand and soap in the other. They took side-by-side places at an empty pair of spigots in the middle of a bunch of sudsy guys.
“We train fuckin’ hard. Hope you can take it.” He stepped under a spray of water and threw back his head, the ricocheting droplets splattering Jeremy’s face. Jeremy, in the meantime, peered sideways from under his own steaming spigot, secretly studying the other’s physique.
Coby’s torso twisted and flexed, the bar of soap sudsing first his bulging shoulders, then the armored muscles of his chest, and next sliding in descending circles to lather his buckled stomach, then finally lingering over the crisp ridge where his abdomen tapered to join his tan-lined hips. His thighs glistened like wet marble in the streaming water, and wagging between them hung his hefty cock, swinging in opposition to the salacious movements of its master. He was statuesque and powerful, with limbs rigidly defined but not yet overbuilt, and skin so evenly bronzed and free from blemish it looked like miraculous plastic. Jeremy quickly concluded that in all his life he had never seen a more perfect human being—like an anatomically correct G.I. Joe come to life, but without the empty joints.
“Got soap?” Coby held the bar out to a squinting Jeremy.
“Thanks.” He took it and began rubbing himself quickly from neck to feet.
“Hey, did you say you were going to Ellie’s party tomorrow?” Coby rinsed himself, then stepped away from the showerhead and shook his head like a dog just out of the rain. He snatched his towel off the wall hook and rubbed it over himself, then tossed it on the floor. He turned and leered splendidly, throwing his naked beauty at the other.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said, feeling exposed even under the protective cover of the spray.
“Then I’ll see ya there.” Coby strutted away between the banks of lockers and then disappeared.
Jeremy turned off the water, then dried himself, cinched the towel around his waist, and walked to the cage. He found Coach Tunny thumbing through a peeling three-ringed notebook, his feet tapping the air atop a junkyard-looking desk.
“Coach?” he asked from the chain-link doorway.
He looked up. “I need to weigh and measure you. Over there.” He motioned with his clipboard to an ancient scale in the corner. Jeremy dropped his towel and stepped up onto the cold metal platform while the coach adjusted the sliding weights.
He raised a bar and brought it down on Jeremy’s he
ad. “Five-eleven and a half, 169.” He frowned. “You could slim down a bit, but I can see you’ve got some strong meat on your bones. If you shed about eight pounds, it’ll help you get further under two minutes, so long as you keep your muscle mass. So how long you been swimming competitively?”
“Since I was eleven.”
“Good. Here’s the deal: no smoking, no drinking, and absolutely no drugs. If I find out about you doing any of the above, you’re off the team. But if you train hard, quicken up that start a’ yours, and become one of my champs, I’ll see you go to any college you want. Deal?”
“Yes, Coach, sir.”
“Good man. Go dress.” He paused in mid head toss. “Wait a second, I think I got something you might like.”
Jeremy retrieved his towel and tucked it around his waist.
“Somewhere here…” he threw open, then slammed shut each of the desk drawers “…here it is, 1986 California State Champs. Your pop is the one in the middle wearing the medal. He won the relay for us.” He handed over a long, dog-eared photograph.
Jeremy looked. Even through the layer of dust, Jonathan’s dazzling grin jumped out from the rest, dead center in the back row of a dozen bare-chested swimmers squinting in the sunlight of twenty years past. He held the picture up closer and came to the conclusion that Katharine was right—his father had been stunningly handsome. He handed the photo back to the coach, afraid of somehow having his thoughts read.
“That there’s an extra, you know. We keep the others framed in the Main Hall of the Administration Office. You can have it if you like.”
Jeremy looked up. “Thanks a lot, Coach.”
“And Tyler? I just wanted you to know how much I liked your old man.” A sad smile creased the skin around his eyes. “He was quite a guy, one in a million, and like a son to me. I can remember hearing about his accident like it was yesterday, just like I’ll never forget that funeral. One of the biggest, saddest funerals I ever went to. They had to cut down the eulogies, there were so many broken-up folks. This whole town mourned for him. Everybody was crazy for him, ’specially your mom. By the way, how is she?”
“She’s not doing so good.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. She was one beautiful girl.” He gave a low whistle.
“So I’ve heard.” Jeremy shifted from foot to foot, wanting to get back to his locker. He didn’t want to be late again to Miss Irwin’s.
“I’ll bet if he were alive today, he’d be proud to call you his own.” His gray eyes held Jeremy’s, and the boy’s said I don’t think so.
“You bet he would, son.” He rose from his chair and rested a leathery hand on his shoulder. “I can tell just by lookin’ at you that you’ve got natural ability and intelligence. The only thing we got to work on is your start and your stamina. You already got the moves.” He smiled and nodded reassuringly. “You’re built almost as strong as him, and if you lean up and train hard and get your start down, you’ll be the team’s anchor for the relay, just like him. But remember, the start is where the magic is. You got to picture yourself like a rock out of a slingshot. Pull baaaack…” he pantomimed with his hands “…then release. Instead, you’re pushin’ off; there’s a difference. Now how you gonna practice it?”
“Pull baaaack, then release. Like a rock from a slingshot.”
“Good boy! And one more thing.” He snatched the photograph out of Jeremy’s hands. “I changed my mind. You let me take this, and I’ll frame it and hang it here in honor of your pop.” He held it up against the chain-link, under a rusting sign stating NO GIRLS ALLOWED. “I’ll give it back at the end of the season, and in the meantime it’ll be a reminder for you to push yourself hard as you can, every day. Now go get dressed, bell’s gonna ring. Be here Monday, 6:30 sharp. And remember our deal.”
Chapter Sixteen
He’d been lying awake for some time, waiting for the blanket of sleep to shroud him. He lay naked on his back under the sheets, clasping his fingers behind his head, already feeling the delicious ache in his flexed biceps from this morning’s workout. He yawned, closedmouthed, pulling the pungent sea air through his nostrils, then popped his eardrums as he expelled it. Turning his head toward the French doors, he squinted at the white glare of the full moon as it hovered big as a searchlight over the twisted iron of the balcony railing and threw flat, cartoonlike shadows on the carpet and along the walls of his bedroom.
The house was silent but for the crash and fizz of the waves on rocks and sand. Farther away, a siren mimicked itself as the plaintive wail echoed off the palisades walls and skimmed out across the bay to the open sea.
He sighed. Nights had always felt lonesome. Apparently it didn’t matter that he was in Ballena Beach now instead of Fresno.
He thought about school. Neither Ellie nor Reed had shown up today, which he’d expected; he was lost in Geometry, which he’d also expected; Carlo hadn’t shown up for their class, so he missed the test they’d both studied for. He hadn’t expected that. Had their conversation at the end of the evening killed their fledgling friendship? He’d need to call him in the morning to see if they were still going to the party together. Otherwise, maybe Arthur could drop him off.
He blinked up at the ceiling, then checked the clock on his nightstand. It was already Saturday, and he had nothing really planned for the coming day but a driving lesson with Arthur, and Ellie’s party in the evening. Nothing terrible was pressing, so why couldn’t he sleep?
He’d awakened hard and sweating after midnight just like, he figured, every other seventeen-year-old male did on occasion. And even now, some two hours later, his aching erection still tented the sheet covering him. Of course, he knew how to relieve himself in a matter of minutes. He’d done it hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times since discovering how at the age of thirteen. But he hadn’t yet allowed himself to do so since his arrival here. In fact, he was terrified to do so. He told himself he wouldn’t think about it, wouldn’t picture it, wouldn’t even touch it until he knew he could do it the right way. And he made a deal with himself: when he couldn’t stand it any longer, he’d indulge himself only in the dark; he didn’t want any visual reminders of his fascination with the male anatomy. Otherwise, if he violated his code, he’d spend tomorrow and the next few days in a state of self-hatred, dreading his “date” with Carlo for the Halloween party as well as every future moment in that torture-filled locker room.
He’d known for years that he was attracted to guys but figured it was something like his mother’s addiction; if she’d only nipped it in the bud early enough, nothing catastrophic would ever have happened. So that’s what he was determined to do: nip it in the bud. And find the right girl—that magical combination of beauty, sexiness, and intelligence that could make him forget any disturbing urges and help him become the man he dreamed of becoming, especially since being handed all but one of the pieces to the dream-life jigsaw puzzle.
But who? Ellie was gorgeous, there was no question about that. But she was also wickedly bitchy, and they had no chemistry between them. Reed, on the other hand, was beautiful and seemed to be giving off interested vibes. She’d even referred to him as “cute.” And he couldn’t remember anyone mentioning her boyfriend.
There was no question now that Reed fit the bill, at least for tonight. He could allow himself some pleasure by thinking about her; it might even start things rolling for the coming evening and maybe even beyond.
He reached down, grasped himself, and began picturing her deeply creased cleavage, imagining those lovely soft breasts naked as he made circles with his fingers around her hardening brown nipples. He saw her mouth open and her tongue slither out to lick the insides of his cheeks, then draw his tongue deep within her mouth. He could almost hear her whimper as they kissed.
He saw himself kiss her nipples, then slide his tongue down the center of her belly toward the space between her legs. Her stomach muscles tightened and flexed, and she drew in sharp breaths as his mouth crawled like a horny snail dow
n the centerline of her body.
His hand moved faster under the covers, and his breathing quickened. With relief, he discovered he had no difficulty imagining her tight belly, her firm hips, and the wetness between her legs waiting for him, craving his hardness. He was a man now; he could do manly things. He would mount her forcefully yet gently, but not before pleasuring her the way women loved.
His hand was jerking madly back and forth now, and he threw the bedsheet aside so as not to get it wet. The shock of the cold night air tensed his naked body, and his skin erupted in goose flesh. His body and mind were consumed with the pleasure his hand was giving himself. He knew it wouldn’t be long.
And as his cherished climax approached, so well-deserved and wholesome with images of heaving breasts and lipsticked lips, Reed’s curvaceous waist morphed into Coby’s rippling abdomen, his mushroomed manhood aimed obscenely at Jeremy’s gaping mouth. He imagined with delicious panic the sensation of his tongue making contact with the exquisitely molded flesh as he took him down his throat while watching the marbled thighs flex with ecstasy, then scissor crazily with pleasure. He was ambushed by visions of Coby’s crooked smile, Coby’s heroic chest, Coby’s sculpted ass, his own feet in the air as Coby grabbed his ankles and mounted him face to face with blond stubble scratching madly against brown, Coby’s drooling spit as their tongues twisted against each other’s as Coby slowly entered him…
Jeremy’s toes curled, and his back arched off the bed as he gasped and locked his wrist and streaked his torso with sperm.
And it was over.
It took him a minute to catch his breath. His chest heaved as he peered down the length of himself and saw that in spite of the frigid nighttime air, he was covered in perspiration that glistened silver in the moonlight. Then he watched numbly as the puddles on his chest turned clear, then trickled onto the sheets.