The Sex Squad

by David Leddick

  I guess I thought the Atlantic Ocean was going to be like Lake Michigan: sedate beaches and only occasionally roiled waters. The shore at Davis Park was quite different. Vast beaches empty of people and waves crashing in from far-off shores. I said, “Where are we?” when we walked down there without even unpacking. Illy gestured. “That way is New York. Down there is the end of Fire Island.” And pointing towards the ocean: “That way is Spain.” Just when I was beginning to think he was a kind of sumptuous fucking machine he would surprise me.

  In June, there was still a chilly little breeze blowing, sweeping the sand free of any footprints. As it turned out, Illy and I both loved the shore and could walk endlessly along the water’s edge looking for shells. He was less of a swimmer than I was. (He was from Moorehead, Minnesota, originally. What do they say, eleven months of snow and one month of poor skating?) But he loved to sunbathe. I learned that from him. Illy had a very rich body, not what you would expect from someone whose family came from Norway. He was very sensual and had his clothes off as much as possible. He said a married woman with whom he had an affair in Minneapolis before coming to New York had called him “my little Percheron” because of the rounded force of his buttocks and thighs. I sometimes wanted to watch him fuck somebody else just to see them in action. I never did. I have my limits.

  You get the idea. I couldn’t keep my hands off his cock while we were there. He was sort of Percheron-like in that department, too. It was big, beautiful, and it was highly visible with our boy romping around naked as often as possible.

  Every day we walked far along the beaches, usually in the direction of Water Island, towards civilization. Beyond Water Island was Fire Island Pines, then Cherry Grove. In the years that came to pass I went to some of the other towns closer to the city. The very upper-crust Point O’Woods, cheek by jowl with the much more collegiate Ocean Bay Park. They had a high fence between the two communities to avoid mingling. But they mingled on the beach anyway. When you need to get laid there’s always a way.

  Further along, where Fire Island almost collides with Jones Beach, are Saltaire and Fair Harbor. Beach towns that date back into the early 1930s, probably the ‘20s, when people first started coming out to Fire Island for weekends.

  Water Island, where we went on our walks, must have been an early town also, probably for Patchogue families from the mainland. Just a handful of frame houses strewn about, with no street grid or plan. All bleached out into a beautiful gray. There never seemed to be anyone in Water Island, either. We would sit on the front porches, dangling our feet down toward the sand.

  There was something restful about Illy. He could calm down. He read.

  Illy and I never went to most of the towns. It would have meant taking one of the beach taxis that bounced back and forth along the edge of the water where the sand was hard, and these were expensive jaunts. And it would have meant leaving the isolation of Davis Park. We preferred our outings to Water Island, on foot, because it was even more deserted than where we were staying. Illy and I enjoyed being alone together a lot.

  Not because we were so in love, because we weren’t. Perhaps I was in lust and Illy didn’t mind me worshiping at the shrine of his body. But Illy and I really relished the sea and the sun and the emptiness and didn’t want to be distracted from it.

  While we were walking along the beach, we were often passed by the beach taxis, the drivers waving and shouting in a friendly manner. In the night you could see them, too, burrowing through the darkness, headlights flashing across the foamy edges of the incoming comers. Whole caravans carrying loads of people back and forth, mostly to the Pines and Cherry Grove, where the nightclubs were. The poet Frank O’Hara was lost on one of those deep-night caravans along the edge of the ocean, headlights tailing headlights. He was standing on the beach at night beside a stalled beach taxi, perhaps a little drunk, and another beach taxi ran over him. He died the next day on the mainland after being taken off the island by boat in the night with the greatest difficulty. I can only imagine it. His battered body being carried in a blanket to the pier. Frantic phone calls trying to unearth a water taxi to come across the bay by night. An ambulance waiting as they churned into Sayville. The kind of nightmare the fun lovers of Fire Island weren’t prepared for.

  We took a beach taxi only once, to go to Cherry Grove to check out the nightlife. All the flightiest were in the bar there, cigarettes braced and bracelets jangling. This was before the appearance of the Butch Queen. There were no muscled men playing at stevedore hanging around the Ice Palace in Cherry Grove. Illy and I were quite a masculine pair in comparison, and many a languorous glance was cast in our direction. Curious, isn’t it? Who were the prototypes for these men? Maria Montez? Constance Bennett? Rita Hayworth? Always the least talented actresses. Later, Quentin Crisp said, “Why is it homosexuals always copy the least attractive members of the opposite sex? Drag queens always look like whores. Butch dykes always look like garbage collectors. What could possess them?” Indeed. Illy said something similar. “Why act like a girl? There are plenty of real ones if anybody wants one. Men are looking for men, not girls.” This would have been very revolutionary thinking in Cherry Grove, where slinky hips and the shaking back of long, imaginary hair and invisible long earrings were all the go.

  Men were dancing together to songs like “Blue Moon,” but the ambiance was something like a ten-cents-a-dance dance hall. All the girls were waiting for customers, but the Johns were missing. Illy and I danced. He led. He didn’t do a great two-step for a professional dancer, but I was pleased that he wanted to dance. And hold me close.

  Sometimes my lust for Illy approached love. His touch never thrilled me. My heart didn’t stop when I thought I saw him in a crowd. But I never was with him that I didn’t feel like sleeping with him, and in all the many times we went to bed together, that was always true. That says something, doesn’t it? I think you can almost put that under the heading of love.

  Did you ever read a J. D. Salinger story called “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut”? It was always my favorite of his. Much more so than “A Nice Day for Banana Fish.” That always seemed rather overdone. But in the Connecticut story, the central character is a woman who had once been in love with Seymour. (I assume you know Salinger well enough that you’re aware he often writes about the brother of the narrator, Seymour.) This woman is now married to a stockbroker type and lives in Connecticut. A school friend who works in New York comes up for a visit and they get a little drunk, talking about the past. She says to her friend, “I was a nice girl then, Elouise, wasn’t I?” And I knew the feeling. When I look back on the days with Illy I think I was really a nice person. I wanted to be in love, to be loyal, and stay with someone all my life. And I thought Illy might be the one. I was giving it everything I had. Now it seems so sad. Now I am loyal and with one person. And I’m not really a very nice person at all. Although I always act as though I am. I blame life. But I would, wouldn’t I?

  So, what is it about the sun that makes one so brainless? All I remember of that week with Illy was the sun, the cool June air, the empty beaches reaching away as we faced the glittering sea, the sea grass blowing in the dunes behind us. I don’t remember it ever being night. I don’t remember eating. We must have, but what? And the food was from where? I guess I brought it with us or bought some at the little store. And I must have cooked. Illy never cooked. I remember none of these things.

  I remember shaving Illy’s legs. He had decided he would have his body entirely hairless. His upper body had no hair except for his armpits. He left that.

  Stripping down, he braced his butt on the edge of a stool and extended his legs in front of him. I had already agreed to do the shaving when we came in from the beach. I had hot water, but how I don’t know. There must have been a gas tank somewhere to heat water. I used my own shaving brush and shaving soap in its wooden bowl and whipped up some good, firm lather. I worked from the bottom up. With my own razor I shaved one leg from the knee down. And
then the other. I was careful and didn’t nick him.

  He sat naked above me, his arms folded, watching me. It was like some kind of sex ritual, but an unclear one. I don’t think Illy imagined it would be. But I made it into one. He said to me once while we were having sex, “You should have been a whore. You’re always dreaming up something new.”

  Then I lathered up his strong thighs. His penis swelled and sank back as I got nearer it, and then I would move the razor down his leg away from it. Perversely, I didn’t put it in my mouth. The Puritan ethic, I guess. Start what you finish. One thing at a time.

  I think it was more than that. It was the first time I ever felt truly perverse. I knew he wanted me to drop the razor and pull him down between my lips. And knowing that, I didn’t. If he had gotten a real big boner, that would have been flattering and I probably would have. But Illy always needed to be aroused, massaged, played with, sucked on. He wasn’t going to desire you more, or rather, before you desired him. So you learn to be a bitch, no matter how nice you are to start out with.

  I don’t remember how it ended. Certainly with Illy’s powerful and shapely legs slick and smooth and monumental in their hairlessness.

  These are the other fragments of that week on Fire Island I recall. I’m in the water naked. It’s chilly. Our Illy with his big willy is hovering around at the edges of the blue, blue water. Dancing about like a three-year-old. Dipping in a toe and darting back. His body looked like an Ingres drawing. All sloping lines, one honey-tan color, honey-blond hair standing straight up, slanting Oriental eyes.

  A beach taxi was coming. Being naked on the beach wasn’t that common then, so I gestured for him to come into the water. To not shock the solid burghers who might be in the taxi on their way to Ocean Park. Illy didn’t understand. The crashing waves covered the sound of the taxi’s motor. And then it was whizzing behind him. He whirled around, giving them a real flash. Surprised, he threw himself into the ocean, sinking that beautiful body from their sight. I laughed. It was high delight in those chilly, blue waves, sparkling in the high sun, the dunes behind, long grass blowing, the taxi churning away down the beach, sexy, tan Illy stroking his way through the water towards me.

  Perhaps it was on our walk back from that dip that we went up into the dunes. Illy wanted to sunbathe naked where it wasn’t so windy. Somewhere more private, he said.

  In the high, blowing grass he stretched out on a towel. He shut his eyes. I sat down beside him on another towel. I looked at him. He had a slight smile. His penis was saying hello. I touched it. It said hello very clearly, nodding and getting to its feet. Illy didn’t open his eyes. He always surrendered himself to pleasure without a moment’s hesitation. He spread his legs slighdy and flexed his pelvis. “Martha Graham,” I said.

  I was sure that we were in plain sight of any passing beach taxi or shore walker, so I arranged myself to be seated casually leaning on one arm, watching the sea. The other hand was getting busy. A towel stood by to throw over Illy in an emergency.

  I wet him up with my mouth a little, but he preferred a hand to be tugging on him. Phallic worship, there you had it, and something well worth worshiping. Illy could hang on a long while. He loved the to-ing and fro-ing, the little quick movements near the head, the long, long strokes pulling way down to the base. Any imaginative innovations were much appreciated. At the end, he tightened his stomach muscles and pressed his hand down hard on his abdomen. His thighs and buttocks tightened, he erupted with a great “Gaaaah!!!” I looked around and mopped him up with the spare towel.

  Illy got up and pulled on his black trunks. Whether I had an orgasm or not was of no concern. The phallus had been worshiped. It was time to move on. I always had the impression Illy enjoyed a hand job more than intercourse. Less personal.

  Isn’t this just the kind of stuff you always want to know about people? Particularly if they’re famous? I’d love to know what Dwight Eisenhower’s story was. I read recently he had to fight not to appear effeminate. Hmmmm. What a story Mamie could have told. Maybe that was why she was always under the weather on the top floor of the White House, enjoying a martini or two. I mean, after all, who cares hearing about where somebody went to college? If you could hear about their real sexual carryings-on … Richard Nixon. I wouldn’t even want to get started.

  Illy did have an amazing body. One afternoon during that endless week we were making love on a daybed in front of a window that gave onto the boardwalk in front of the house. I don’t know why I tell you that except to give you an idea of how deserted Davis Park was. That someone might walk by and look in and see us was beyond the realm of possibility. Illy was kneeling and I had him in my mouth. He slowly let himself back down onto the bed backwards so he was lying flat out with his legs folded under him. His penis jetted upward from the low-lying triangle of his body, making my work easy. Something like a drinking fountain. Is that what you find memorable about a fuck? The sensations coupled with exotic and unusual images? Or am I just a very visual person? It’s true, I can enjoy a well-made porn flick.

  Another memory. Going alone down to the beach one morning I passed a young carpenter working on a house at the edge of the dunes. He shouted, “Hi, Stuck-up.” I looked up and laughed and walked up the boardwalk that led to the house. He was dark, stocky, not bad-looking. Like a thousand guys. He was probably in his early twenties.

  “You’re the snooty one,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other. He put his hands in his bib overalls. He didn’t seem to be quite sure why he had wanted to get my attention and I wasn’t, either. In Michigan “snooty” was one of the worst things one could be called.

  “Gee, I didn’t mean to be,” I said. I didn’t think it would do to tell him I didn’t remember ever seeing him before.

  “You’re always walking past here with your friend and you never look around or say hi or anything,” he said. I decided he was lonely working all by himself in deserted Davis Park.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi,” he said back.

  “You don’t ever come down to the beach,” I said.

  “No. I have to work all day. I have a lunch break, but I never remember to bring a bathing suit.”

  “You could go in without one,” I said.

  “Aah.” He laughed. That was obviously a very far-fetched idea for someone who must have hailed from across the bay in Patchogue.

  “I’d like to go in somewhere without one,” he said. He looked at me meaningfully. This was no high-school kid. Fire Island had spoiled him.

  “Meaning?”

  “You.”

  I was a little taken aback. In Michigan, carpenters don’t chat you up and then want to get it on. Perhaps they do, but I never experienced it there.

  “Oh, gee, I couldn’t,” I said. “I’m out here with somebody.”

  “He’d never know,” he said.

  “I’d know,” I told him.

  “You’re just the kind of guy I’d really like to meet,” he said.

  “You are meeting me,” I said. “My name is Harry. Harry Potter.” I stepped closer and manfully shook his hand.

  He didn’t hang on to my hand very long, but his grip was firm. “Lloyd,” he said, but didn’t give me his last name. So I couldn’t call his mother, I guess.

  “If you want to come around and say hello, we’re right down the boardwalk.” I pointed. “It’s called Bide-A-Wee.”

  “Oh, yeah. We call that place Bide-A-Wee-Wee. Maybe I will.”

  But he didn’t. We said good-bye. I went down to the beach. I don’t know why Illy wasn’t with me. Perhaps he was reading and was tired of lying in the sun. He could be like that. When I came up from the beach, the carpenter wasn’t there. And he was never there again. You have to believe in destiny. Otherwise you’d go crazy thinking that perhaps your fate was a carpenter named Lloyd who just slipped through your fingers one noon on Fire Island.

  The last day it rained. I went down to the pier to check boat times and discovered one was to
leave in half an hour. The next one was three hours later. I rushed back to the house. “Let’s leave on the next boat,” I said, throwing things into a suitcase. “We can make it.”

  Illy was not a quick turnaround. He started to pack, but it was too much for him. He dithered in the bathroom, couldn’t fold his clothes neatly enough to suit him, forgot sandals under the couch, ran back and found them while I stood in front of the house in a rubber poncho with the wagon.

  We hurried to the pier just in time to see the boat pull out. I was already enough of a New Yorker to be pissed off at missing a connection. Illy was furious. “You did that deliberately,” he fumed. “You just wanted to upset me. You knew we couldn’t make it.” I turned with the wagon and started back on the rain-slippery boardwalk towards Bide-A-Wee. Illy sulked along behind me. I had never seen him in this childish high-dudgeon state. Where had my sex god gone? Into a pouty, handsome guy shuffling along a wet boardwalk, shoulders slumped, hands in his pockets, scuffling his feet as we returned, to read for three hours until the next boat departed.