King Perry (31 page)

“What’s that at the bottom?”

He reaches in and pulls out a triple-baggied index card. He scoffs and begins unsealing each one. “Paranoid much?”

I say, “Wow, whoever triple-baggied that note totally planned ahead. Clever, clever person.”

“Paranoid
freak
.”

“I’d say whoever was here—he or she—was well prepared. I wonder what the note says.”

He shoots me a casual dismissal, then reads the index card. A moment later he hands it over for me to study my own handwriting.

HELLO GENTLEMEN,

I CAME BACK TO VISIT A FAVORITE SPOT YESTERDAY.

PLEASE ENJOY THESE REFRESHMENTS.

KING AABEE

“Yesterday?” I say, gasping. “What an amazing coincidence.”

Without another word, we unpack a few essentials from my backpack: a beach blanket, blue china plates, more of those yummy rosemary crackers, pistachios, and crystal tumblers. As we establish our meager picnic and Perry mixes his cranberry vodka juice, I’m delighted to witness a sturdier glow from him. He’s exuding exuberance, the double
e
checkpoint achieved at last. Perry survived on prison land and now the ocean. If he makes it through the night in the sky, he’s home free.

Before he dives in, he offers me my pick of the buffet. His smile beams, his eagerness so genuine that suddenly I feel terrible. I have to be an asshole again. Forgive me, Perry, for how badly I’m going to screw with you.

He says, “This king stuff is cool. Thank you for the snacks.”

“I cannot take credit for King Aabee’s generosity; he was clearly here first.”

“Well, he has good snacking taste with the exception of the liquid bag.”

“I bet he
intended
us to enjoy a caprese salad, but apparently it got beat up worse than anyone could have anticipated. Even a powerful king such as Aabee could not have anticipated how wild and rough the ocean would beat the crap out of tomatoes. And mozzarella.”

In a doubtful voice he says, “You’re giving King Aabee too much credit. Who couldn’t figure out the ocean would pulverize tomatoes? Amateur move.”

“I’m sure
King Aabee
tried a number of techniques over the years, and believed he had solved—”

Perry says louder, “When
I
pack ocean coolers, I always bag things four or five times.”

“Now who’s an asshole?”

He grins and mashes some pineapple and papaya into his vodka cranberry drink. I offer him a maraschino cherry, but he refuses. It’s fun to have opportunities to say the word
maraschino
. It rolls off the tongue like a juicy, roly-poly cherry.

Mar-a-
schino.
I love that zip at the end.

Perry says, “To King Aabee.”

I toast with my beer. “And maraschino cherries.”

After we savor the moment, he asks, “How do you know about this place?”

“I’ve been coming to the overlooked overlook for years. I’ve been known to come out of the forests at night long after everything around here is closed, and of course, I’m always hungry. I sometimes leave a cooler.”

“Tide?”

“Doesn’t go that high. I sleep right over there.”

“You don’t sleep in the cave?”

“Water fills it to the waist. Honestly, the cave is terrifying during high tide. I almost died in there once.”

We trade more stories about our lives, little things, TV shows and food we both enjoy. He likes lemon grass soup; I like lemon grass soup. He likes spicy fish sauce in his curry, and me too. Neither of us think
Will & Grace
will last long on network TV, but we both concede that the show already entered its second season, so what do we know? Our exchange is the getting-to-know-you stuff one might chat about at an art gallery opening with a stranger.

Snack break ends with us making out, me on top of him, and after some hot necking in kinky rubber waders, we wander the small, sandy area, holding hands, me occasionally rubbing his cock and then guiding him deeper into the surf. He laughs when I try to dunk him, and after two unsuccessful attempts, he pushes me back and we chase each other, kicking water and yelling.

I knew the waders wouldn’t work that well. But I figured Perry needed help surrendering and they provide some measure of insurance to his investor brain: running in the surf is reasonable when dressed appropriately.

You’ve got to seduce the brain throughout a King Weekend, appease it, and occasionally confound it. The brain is so commanding, confident that every thought has always been right, is right, will be right, that tweaking a man’s heart has no chance of success if the brain isn’t distracted.

I have no doubt Perry’s brain remains befuddled by King Bolinas’s pointless mission, King Aabee’s sewer cleaning, and small mysteries such as how I knew he liked Diet Coke in the morning. But it’s too late. On the Golden Gate Bridge, Perry’s heart finally agreed to the melody while his brain continued to analyze each note individually. Now his brain must sit back for the symphony to reach its inevitable crescendo.

During our water fights, I yell out, “Ever get sucked off in the ocean?”

“No,” he shrieks, and to avoid my giant splash he races away down the shoreline, but the water in his waders throws him off balance until he splats face-first into two feet of water and soft sand.

The investment banker rises, laughing hard as water planes over his face. A clump of sand perches on his head like a lopsided hat. He peels off his soaked sweatshirt, tossing it toward the shore.

I cup my hands to my mouth and shout, “
Anyone want a blow job? Anyone? Line up over here for blow jobs.
”

I find Perry incredibly sexy right now, soaked and leering as he crosses the distance toward me. He’s not traditionally sexy because the tie-dye shirt and his water stumblings make him seem completely stoned more than anything. I love the water dripping off his chin, his sheepish grin, and I picture him in a perfectly white shirt, starched, and a shiny red tie. Maybe a gold tie clip holding it against his tummy. Oh man, I love bankers.

“What if I can’t stay hard in the ocean?” he asks, unzipping his jeans and pulling them down as much as the waders will allow. Seems like a silly question when I observe his semi-hard dick bobbing happily over the edge of his zipper.

Perry looks down. “The water’s cold.”

“Leave that to me,” I say, tugging his cock. “I’ll take charge of cocksucking and you be in charge of getting blown, okay?”

“You’re the boss.”

He didn’t even bother to scan the beach before whipping out his cock for semipublic sex. Good man, Perry. Let go of the world’s compass.

I pull him by his dick, leading him to deeper water. We need to reach thigh-deep water for this experience.

Knee-deep, I say, “Plant your feet.”

He does it, shaking his head and spraying me with droplets.

I engulf his cock in one motion, and he instinctively grips my head. I’ve been sexually taunting him since last night, not permitting him to come during our last two sexual encounters. His cock’s not underwater so I don’t have to force the water out of my mouth, and he’s hard despite his worry, so a couple of deep strokes and he’s already twitchy. Soon after, a wave splashes over my head, and I hear Perry yelp.

I burst straight up, splashing everywhere, a soaked and hairy nymph exploding from Neptune’s depths.

“Hey,” I say as casually as I can manage, wiping my face. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” he says, face registering happy impatience. “I’m getting my cock sucked in the ocean and that wave almost knocked me over.”

“No kidding,” I say, shivering a moment but not willing to break our casual tone. “How is the blow job?”

Damn, it’s cold.

“Interrupted,” he says. “Get back down there, man.”

“Let’s move you to a safer place,” I suggest, grabbing his cock and leading him away.

I know where I’m taking him, a flat rock where Perry can lean back if pushed harder by a wave, a rock with no starfish to accidentally dislodge. He even has a footrest for his right leg, a stubbier black boulder devoid of high-schooler mussels. It’s further out, more blue than clear, deep enough that a big wave could hit above our waists.

“Perfect,” Perry says when I lean him against the rock. Seconds later he says, “Gah! Cold! Bad touch!”

“Who, me?”

He laughs and says, “You’re good touch.”

We laugh, and his fat cock points straight out at me.

I drop to my knees and start again. Now that his dick is almost underwater, I use the first few strokes to force the saltwater out of my mouth and he squirms while I recreate suction. I maintain this suck job easily by pushing water out my nose as I inhale his cock. He grabs the back of my head as I tug him closer. It doesn’t take nearly as long as he expected to get right back to the brink. But I’m orgasm surfing: waiting for a good wave before throwing him over the edge. Right as he gets closer once again, I burst topside, wiping my face and taking big gulps of air.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Oh, man,” he says. “You’re killing me. I can’t believe I’m getting blown in the Pacific.”

“Yeah, it’s a good ocean for blow jobs.”

I descend and suck his cock for a while longer, bringing him closer and closer, his own cresting waves of pleasure threatening to topple him at any moment. I ease off and squeeze his balls, cold, hard nuggets, ready to explode. Sucking again, I play him until he wriggles like a fish, thrashing around with one hand on my shoulder and when he gasps, I bet he doesn’t understand how we can pause right there, right on the edge.

I rise from the water yet one more time and let everything drip down my face. “Did you hear something?”

“Whaaa? Cmaaaawn,” Perry says, slurring the words. “I was
so fucking close.
”

“I thought I could hear music.”

“Fuck music,” Perry says and looks around. “I get to come, right?”

“Strange,” I say and make a great effort to scan the beach, “I heard starfish singing—tiny, thin voices, almost impossible to hear a single one. But in unison, I could hear this mighty chorus singing the song of the ocean, of her great love for all her children.”

Perry says, “King Aabee’s flute? Is that what you heard?”

“Maybe. Wouldn’t be the first time King Aabee’s music lingered.”

“I’ll keep my ears open, but in the meantime, king man, you wanna go periscope down?”

He jacks his thumb toward his bobbing cock, and I laugh because he’s damn sexy when he lets himself go.

I suck.

Not long after, my whole body senses a bigger wave coming, so with a few deep tugs from my throat, I coax him over the edge, as it crashes over us. This isn’t a rock-smashing wave, but we’re far enough out that a bigger wave splashing right up to your chest probably creates a full-body orgasm, a smashing from the inside out, and as Perry shoots his load into my throat, through muffled water I hear him scream at the ocean.

The ocean screams back.

Fifteen

A
FTER
returning to land, I announce that it’s time for the next adventure. We pack up our picnic gear, and I encourage Perry to rinse off as much sand as possible before we head back to the van.

“No fancy hotels in our immediate future?”

“You’re gonna smell like ocean for the rest of the night. Sorry.”

“God, Vin. All this camping and roughing it crap. Are you sure you’re a homo?”

“You tell me,” I say, carefully packing the glass tumblers. “Was that blow job gay enough for you?”

“Yeah, that was pretty great. I don’t always come from that alone.”

Perry strips off the waders and then peels off his jeans. A moment later he’s running naked into the surf.

He turns around and gives me a victory stance.

I drop my packing chores and strip off my waders as fast as I can. There’s a hot investment banker running naked in the surf, and I don’t want to miss out. I dash to the beach, and Perry welcomes me by kicking water in my face.

Soon enough, Mr. Quackers greets us loudly, happy to catch us up on everything that happened to him during our absence. Sounds quite eventful. I hand Perry a water bottle and ask him to refill Mr. Quackers’s water canister.

He says, “What exactly do ducks eat, anyway? Besides lettuce.”

“Grass. Insects. They love snails, I found out.”

Perry grunts.

While hunting under the tarps with both hands, I turn my head and watch his reaction. I stick out my tongue and bite it, as if lost in concentration. I laid out everything sequentially so I can find whatever’s needed; that’s no problem. I want to see his reaction to the mystery tarps.

Not much I can read. He’s mildly curious but not impatient and not asking questions. He’s not irritated or amused. Okay, that’s fine, I guess. I took his temperature a number of times on the beach. Really, Vin, what else do you want? You just finished sucking him off in the surf. That ought to tell you enough for now.

My hands emerge from under the mystery tarps with a plastic box containing duck food. “Give him more of these pellets and some shredded lettuce. Fresh out of snails, unfortunately.”

Perry says, “Yes, how unfortunate we don’t get to watch a baby duck gum a snail to death.”