“How do I do that?” the boy asked, still with his face half-hidden by his bent arm to hide his shame.
The captain considered him for a minute, grabbed an empty glass beer bottle, and made the motion of stroking it—just a few efficient movements—then tipped the bottle and let the swill dribble onto the boy’s bare chest.
“Use the head while I raise the anchor,” the captain said. Raising the anchor was usually the boy’s job, and to relinquish him of this duty was significant. As good as an order, he thought.
The boy went downstairs to the head, closing the flimsy accordion door behind him, something they hardly ever did. When they needed to piss, they did so off the side of the boat, and when they needed to shit, they usually did their business with the door open, sometimes carrying on a conversation, or more likely, an argument. The head was claustrophobic with the door shut, the roiling of the boat made him nauseous, and the boy started sweating immediately.
He peeled down his tight bathing suit and stared at his own foreign flesh. Bulbous and oozing slime, it reminded him of those nasty sea cucumbers that puked up their own guts when you squeezed them too tightly.
He copied the movement the captain had shown him, which elicited both relief and irritation. It was too tender, and it hurt where his calluses chafed the swollen skin. There was a knock on the door and the boy squeaked in dismay. The captain’s fist shot inside with a greasy tube of lotion. Gross.
“Use this,” he said, another order. His footsteps retreated, followed a few minutes later by the turn of the winch directly above him.
The boy coated his hand in lotion—too much, he later realized—and set to stroking again. This was better, smoother at least, but no less disgusting. Slimy and slippery like the viscous fluid that covered a sea animal’s skin, like the stingrays he’d once petted at the aquarium’s touch tank.
He muffled his noises by stuffing a dirty towel into his mouth and jerked himself hurriedly, feeling bad without knowing why and thinking of his mother. She still came to mind most days and in their conversations with each other. Whenever a disagreement broke out between them, the captain usually cited his mother as the one to blame. “Just like your mother,” he’d say bitterly, which only caused the boy to dig his heels in deeper because his mother was generally right.
But thoughts of his mother were quickly replaced by memories of that handsome doctor who’d saved his hearing and possibly his life. Those amorphous thoughts shifted again to the boy on the beach the other day who’d worn only a Speedo because he and his family were from France. The material had outlined the shape of his privates, and the boy had caught himself staring. They’d not been able to communicate much, but they’d splashed around in the shallow water and swum together until the boy was called back by the captain to make dinner.
The boy imagined his hand sliding against the other boy’s back while they wrestled, the tightness of their warm bodies pressed against one another, and the boy knew that his fantasies, only half-materialized, featured masculine forms. Flat chests and swollen cocks and rough hands. The boy imagined thick-jointed fingers, crawling all over his cock, forcing their way inside his mouth, shoved like a cork into other places. He imagined himself being held down, being forced to climax by someone else—by a man—so that he couldn’t even help it. So that it wasn’t his fault.
He ejaculated in a dizzy haze, then sucked in a massive gulp of oxygen and gripped the edge of the counter because he’d nearly passed out from holding his breath.
The release reminded him of a roller coaster when the car dropped, and your stomach gave out. The fall. The boy had messed the teak wood cabinet. His come dripped down the grooves, thick and white and incriminating. It smelled like a mollusk. He put his finger in the mess and tasted it. Slimy like an oyster and salty too.
The boy used the same dirty towel he’d had in his mouth to wipe it up, then sat on the toilet to contemplate this new reality. This was a pleasure he could give himself, one that another could give him as well. Another man. Because he was homosexual. Gay. A faggot. A litany of words and phrases assaulted him, and he suffered his first identity crisis and perhaps his first anxiety attack as well.
He was floating and spinning, his mind hardly tethered to his body, until everything was brought back into focus by a sharp rap on the flimsy slatted door and the captain’s gruff voice.
“You done in there yet? I need you to guide us off the reefs.”
The boy wiped his sweating face and chest with the filthy, salt-stiffened towel, and opened the door. The captain had already retreated to his post behind the wheel, and the boy passed by him without a word or a look. He stood at the prow of the boat like a polished masthead and navigated the captain through the maze of reefs, using only the obscure shapes and colors of the water to guide him.
13
the gift
There was one thing I could offer Arden that the millionaire Matteo Giacomo could not—my imagination. Like Scheherazade, I would tempt my lover with stories in order to keep him coming back for more.
“Arden,” I said softly. “I have something for you.”
He glanced up from where he was working, sprawled across my couch. We’d spent the morning writing, and I was only waiting for his concentration to stall. He’d been grumbling and sighing for a while now, so I figured a break was in order.
He set his laptop aside, and I placed the wrapped package in his hands.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“A gift.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“It’s Tuesday. Now, open it.”
Arden carefully peeled back the paper to reveal the fifth and final installment ofCold Lake Chronicles. I’d had to finagle the hardback ofThicker Than Waterfrom my publisher, since it was two months ahead of its release date. I could have easily gotten an advanced reader copy, but I wanted Arden to have an official first-print edition.
“Michael,” he said, wide-eyed.
“Hot off the presses.”
