A Summer Romance

Did you see how I snuck that in there? The thing is, even though I feel I’m out, I don’t tell anyone unless they ask. So far, no one’s asked, so I’m confident about saying that. Even if I feel funny saying it.

My family knows. Alex ignores it. It’s something he doesn’t know how to deal with, so he doesn’t. Which is fine with me. It just means he treats me exactly the same way now as he did before he knew.

Amber knew before anyone else did. She and I have always been very close. That’s not surprising—most twins are while growing up, but a lot of them start to pull apart more as they reach their teens, to form separate identities. We didn’t. Well, we did, actually, but not as much as many did. Some twins become competitive; some start resenting each other. And while it’s true we don’t tell each other everything now, while we aren’t involved in each other’s life the way we were before reaching our teen years, we still are close. She is still the one I go to when I need to talk about anything.

So she knew I was gay early, about the same time I figured it out, but that wasn’t how the rest of the family found out. How they learned is embarrassing. I was ten, and at ten, didn’t like that I had to work and had responsibilities when all the other kids that came there just goofed off and had fun. So I pouted some and balked some, and Dad was upset with me some, and Mom, well, she’d almost never get mad at anything and disliked anyone being angry—she said it cast a dark-red aura over everything—and was my protector. And when I’d shirk off and not be where I was supposed to be, my dad would start off searching for me with a look in his eyes; my mom would go looking for me as well, and she knew me better than he did and was pretty good at finding me.

Well, that day I was in my best place, and I wasn’t alone. One of the boys who was staying in a cabin for a week had attracted my attention the way a lot of boys had begun doing, and he was as eager as I was to learn what these feelings we’d been having were all about. So I’d taken him to one of my spots, one that was out in the woods way off the beaten track where a tree had fallen over probably a century earlier and stuff had grown up around it. There was a hollow near the base of the old tree, plenty big enough for two boys, plenty big enough for what two boys wanted to do, and plenty private enough for them to do it.

We were naked when Mom found us. She was a little embarrassed; I was a lot embarrassed. She didn’t seem to mind what we were doing. She did have a question for me, however. She wanted to know if this was just curiosity on my part or something more. I told her I didn’t have any curiosity about girls, only boys, and had had for some time. She seemed both surprised and, well, delighted. I know, that isn’t reasonable, but you don’t know my mom. Most anything out of the mainstream was interesting to her and sometimes fascinating and almost never a reason for opprobrium. She thought there was much more to the world than the obvious, and she always said she didn’t want to miss any of the good stuff.

But she told my dad about what I’d said, and he talked to me about it, and Alex overheard, so everyone knew. Dad wasn’t really upset by it, but he was surprised. “Wow!” he said. “I’d never have guessed it. But look, Perry. You can’t be getting it on with customers. I’d get in really bad trouble if someone would complain. It could really hurt our business.”

I took exception to that. All these boys running around all summer, mostly undressed, with a lot of them I was sure as randy as I felt? And I was only to look?

“That isn’t fair, Dad!” I argued.

“Why not?” he reasoned. “I don’t want Amber or Alex making it with customers, either.”

I couldn’t dispute that. He had a point. I talked it over with Amber—just as I talked most everything over with Amber—and she saw both sides of it. She understood it was much more difficult for me to find someone to be with at school, and here things were just more open and easier, probably because they’d often be anonymous and usually short-lived. But she didn’t think I should do anything to jeopardize the resort.

So then I talked to Dad again, and he agreed that I could make friends with whomever I wanted to. Just no sex.

Those became the ground rules, the ground rules for all of us children. I was still following them six years later. I’d had opportunities in that time. There’s something about a warm summer evening that just seems to turn me on. I’d been alone swimming in the lake and walking on trails in the woods, and if I’d happened to not be wearing any clothes, well, it just felt really good. And then, there’d been times when I’d been with other boys who were there for a week or so, and we’d become close, and what I felt on some nights, they felt, too. The time and the place and the soft nights with just the two of us—well, it all seemed to have a similar effect on us. I’d swum in the lake at night with other boys, I’d even hiked with them—never with girls, though there’d been even more opportunities to do that—and we’d sometimes been naked. We’d enjoyed the night air on our skin and the liberation from societal norms, but except for just once, that had been the extent of it. No sex at all.

Except the one time. I couldn’t really help it. I was fourteen, and this boy had been there all week and now was going home the next day, and I had it so bad for him it hurt. He knew it, too. Sometimes, at fourteen, it’s difficult to hide your feelings. He knew.

He’d been teasing me all week. Like he’d be in a bathing suit and on the beach at night, and we’d be talking, and he’d been fiddling with his suit, pushing it down a little to scratch his lower stomach, pulling it up tight so what he had was outlined pretty well by the tight cloth, and leering at me as he did it all. Sometimes he’d even rubbed himself. I was fourteen; what was I supposed to do? Well, I did: I got really hard.

And he laughed and dared me to do things with him.  He knew I wasn’t supposed to. I’d told him. And I’d been very good about following rules. It wasn’t in my nature to break the rules.

But that night, it became too much, because when we got behind the concession stand where we couldn’t be seen and he was pressing himself through his suit and I was watching and so hard it was hurting, he suddenly pulled his suit down, stepped out of it and stood there in front of me, then grabbed my hand, which was hanging loose as I was sort of in shock, and placed it on his hard-on.

So that was the night I broke the rule. The only time, but I‘d think anyone could see that the provocation was irresistible. If you were fourteen.

I did him, at his more-than-an-invitation instigation, and by the time he’d finished and he’d decided it was my turn and reached out, it took no time at all for him to satisfy me.

I never told my dad or anyone else. But I certainly remembered. I’ve been remembering ever since. And while the memory was magical, now that I was sixteen, I recognized it for what it had been: a quick and very satisfying thrill at the time. And I knew, while I’d still enjoy something like that, it wasn’t really all I wanted now.

I wanted a boyfriend. And a boyfriend was much more than a quick fumble on a warm summer evening by the lake. That was too fast, too transitory. I wanted more.

I’d finished picking up trash, filling holes, and stocking the concession stand before the crowd filled the beach. I’d long before removed my tie. I’d had a call that Alex would be leading trail rides that day; one of the regular guides had called in sick, and the trail rides were booked solid. So there I was, simply a figure in a brown uniform monitoring the beach, wearing a lot more clothing than anyone else, just being there, a presence. Scoping out the boys—naked but for their important parts—on the sly.

I was watching the crowd. Mostly teens, mostly in groups, a few who seemed to be alone. Mostly skin. The girls’ suits were a lot skimpier than the boys’. It had become fashionable for boys to wear long suits, often down to their knees, and baggy where it counted most. But still, they were who I looked at the most. Some were so cute, both face and body, I couldn’t look at them long. There were a lot like that.

“Hey, kid.”

I could tell the voice was directed at me and turned to look at who’d spoken. There were bodies scattered on towels all around me. But on one, a very attractive girl was staring at me. I walked over.

“Did you call, madam?” I asked with a cheerful smile. Customer service. Amber and I tried to be very friendly with the clients. Alex remained stoic and stodgy no matter what. I’d overheard Dad telling his brother that a front-office job involving mostly paperwork would be perfect for him when he finished college.

The girl smiled. I guessed she was seventeen, just a tad older than I was. Short and wavy dark-brown hair and a skimpy bikini, pretty well filled top and bottom. A tattoo on her left arm, a figure of a dancing skeleton, not very large. I saw more and more tattoos every year. On younger and younger kids, too.

“Madam?” she asked and tried to look affronted but then laughed.

I did, too. “Can I help you with something?”

“Yes!” she said, sounding a little triumphant. “I need help. I can’t get any suntan lotion on my back. Is it in your official capacity to perform such services?”

I laughed again. “I’m here to serve your needs! Whatever they are. I live to please the customer. I’d be happy to run my hands all over your body.  My pleasure.”

She laughed again. “That’d be something, right out here in the open.”

“Yeah, it would. Dad has a rule, though: no making out on the beach. If I ever see it, I’m supposed to thwart it. So I can’t molest you even if I wanted to.”

“You don’t want to?”

“Oops!” I said. “That didn’t come out right. Why in the world would I not want to? I meant, uh, I meant… Well, I just misspoke is all.”

I was blushing a little, and she caught it. “OK, you’re forgiven. I sometimes have that effect on boys, making them stutter and forget themselves. Drool, too, if I really get it going.”

“Yeah, I can see why!” I replied, recovering.

She grinned at me and rolled over onto her stomach on her towel. I knelt down next to her and reached for the suntan lotion. This wasn’t the first time I’d done this. For some reason, though, it was always girls who asked. Never once had I done a boy. That was probably good, though. I’d have been hard as a rock leaning over a boy and caressing the skin on his naked back. A girl, even a pretty one like this, didn’t affect me that way.

I rubbed on the lotion starting at her neck, down to her shoulders, then worked down all the way to the top of her bikini bottom, avoiding the strap on her top. Then I stopped.

“Hey, you’re not finished!”

“I’m not?”

She raised her head off the towel to look at me. “No. You only got my back. My legs need it, too. And my sides. And you didn’t get underneath my top strap. Here, I’ll make that easier.” And with that, she lay back on the towel, reached back and unfastened her bikini top, the sides of which fell down onto the towel.

OK. I poured more lotion on my hands, then began on her legs, saying as I did, “You could do your legs on your own, you know.”

“Are you complaining?” I could hear the humor in her voice—and perhaps something else. Perhaps a challenge?

“Not at all. It’s not every day I get to oil up the prettiest girl on the beach. I just have to be careful, that’s all. Don’t want to embarrass anyone, by which I mean me.”

So, as you can tell, I’d learned to flirt with girls. They loved it. And happy customers were our bread and butter.

She laughed again. I finished with her legs, not going up very far on the insides of them even when she obligingly, flirtatiously, opened them a bit wider. Then I scooted on my knees back up to her side. I had to reach across her to get to her far side. I put one hand on the middle of her back to steady myself, leaned over, and the hand on her back slipped in the oil. I sprawled out on top of her.

“Oomph!” she said. “Hey, I thought there was a rule about making out on the beach.”

I managed to pull myself up off her. “There is,” I rejoined, “so that must not have been making out. That must have been me spazzing out. I apologize.”

“I don’t need an apology. I didn’t mind you lying on me. Gave me a little thrill is all. With advanced warning, I’d have turned over first, given us both a little bit more of a thrill. But, I’ll tell you what. Do it this way. Get right up over me; kneel with a knee on each side of my butt. That way you can get to both sides easily without leaning over so far.”

That made sense but made me think, too. It was a rather indecent way to oil up a girl. Suggestive at the very least. But it was her idea, and I was there to accommodate.

So I did it. I lifted my knee over her butt and sort of squatted my own butt down onto hers; it was very soft and pliant. Then I oiled my hands and leaned forward so that now my crotch rather than butt was being cushioned, and I greased up one side of her, all the way down to where the towel was forcing her breast to swell to the side a little and then the other side the same way.

I was just reaching the swell on that side, my stopping point, when she shifted her position, rolling to the side just enough that my hand, instead of being on the swell, slid right onto her breast. Oil and all. Nipple and all. Right there. On her breast.

I pulled my hand away. She sat up straight, getting out from under me, holding her top in place with one hand. She said, “Ah, that felt really good, you rule-breaker, you.” And leered at me and laughed.

I was a little shocked. And sort of embarrassed. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been an accident. I think she’d planned it.

She didn’t let me think very long. She said, “Did you like that? I did. You had to like it, too.”

“Uh,” I said, and started to get up. She reached out to stop me by putting a hand on my upper leg, grabbing it, and while doing that, her top somehow managed to fall off. “Oops!” she said, grinning, and reached down to recover it. She put it back on, fastened it, and then said, “Answer my question. Did you like that?”

She stared into my face. I didn’t meet her eyes. “Of course I did,” I stuttered.

She kept looking at me. I could feel the intensity of her gaze. I risked raising my eyes to hers and saw her face soften.

“Not like I thought you would,” she finally said. “Not like other boys have.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, but I knew.

“I know boys your age. I’ve gone out with lots of them. They’re simple to understand. Anything at all makes you think about sex. And when you do, well, you know—especially if I encourage it. You all react the same way. Touching a girl’s breast, well, that’s pretty sexy. We’d been flirting, too, so you had to have sex on your mind. But you… you didn’t get hard. I could tell, where you were sitting.  I know what a boy’s boner feels like.”

She was still looking at me. “Even after the feel, when I let you see them. You didn’t get hard.”

I got defensive. “I was surprised, that’s all. It happened too fast. And we’re out in public and all. Dad’s rules, remember?”

She started to smile. Then it turned into a full-grown grin. “Bullshit,” she said.

I stood up, wanting to get away from her, but she reached out and grabbed me. “Wait a sec. We need to talk some more.”

“Why? Haven’t you embarrassed me enough?”

She looked surprised at my tone of voice. “Hey! I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Really. It’s just, well…” She stopped, and for the first time she seemed unsure of herself. This girl who wanted me to sit on her butt so she could feel me get hard. Unsure of herself.

She abruptly stood up. “Come on,” she said, and reached a hand down to me. “I need something to drink, and if your dad owns this place, we should get a discount, right?” Her composure was back and her eyes were laughing even as she managed to keep a straight face.

So we went to the concession stand, and I went in the back door, waved at Sydney and grabbed two cans of pop from the cooler. She took hers, popped the top and sucked down a long pull of it, then repeated, “We need to talk.”