August 02, 2009
Fiction
Good Vibrations
Chad rose from the ocean like Venus in Neoprene.
It was a beautiful, crisp late November day in Southern California, he’d had an amazing afternoon riding the waves, and the half- hit of acid he’d taken was good stuff, no speed at all as far as he could tell.
Sun on the water. Water on the sun. The Pacific was terrific. He began giggling cosmically to himself. Part of his mind was still swirling in the eternity of the last A-frame. Stoked. He was stoked. Stoned and stoked and stoned.
He carried his Hobie board over to his VW van and hoisted it onto the roof rack, strapping it down. Everything was sparkling. Everything was one. What a fucking great day.
Out of the water, he was getting hot. He unzipped his wetsuit, and grabbed a towel and his shorts from the seat of the van. Standing by the blue- and- white VW, he began peeling off the soggy wetsuit. When his lean, tan torso was exposed, he wrapped the towel around his waist, and, reaching underneath, began tugging the suit down over his thighs.
Which is when he noticed the stranger across the parking lot, staring straight at him. It unnerved him for a moment, having someone looking at him like that. Was the guy gay or what?
But then Chad thought What the hell and allowed his towel to “accidentally” fall open, exposing his cock. Might as well let him have a good look.
The sound of the pounding waves made Chad slightly queasy. It’s just the acid, he reminded himself.
For a long moment, the two of them just stood there, Chad with his exposed dick, the young stranger with his piercing blue eyes. The surfer was, oddly, finding the whole thing kind of stimulating. His dick began to fill with blood, but he didn’t want the stranger to get the wrong idea. He tied the towel around his waist, finished taking off the wetsuit, and pulled on his shorts. As he toweled off his shaggy blond hair, the stranger started walking toward him. Chad grew irrationally alarmed at the man’s approach, but he tried to take a Buddhist approach. Fear not. He repeated the mantra. Fear not, fear not.
The stranger pierced him with his blue eyes. “Hi, I’m Bobby,” he said.
“Chad.” The panic mercifully receded. “I think maybe you got the wrong idea…”
“Oh, sorry, no. I’m not a fag. I just wanted to know if you’d like to score some mescaline. See, I thought I could see that you’re…”
“Oh.”
“Of course, if you’re not… hey, man, I’m sorry.”
“No. That’s all right,” Chad said, though it was, really, not all right. The man could be a narc, or…
Bobby peered deep into Chad’s face, as though looking for his soul. “Well, okay, brother. You take care.”
Chad looked out to the West, where other lithe young men were still riding the surf. “Hey,” he heard himself saying, “want to get in the van, smoke some dope?”
Inside the VW, they wordlessly passed the joint back and forth. Chad began to feel not higher, but calmer. “Hey, I’m not gay, either,” he said, then felt he might be protesting too much.
In the silence that followed, he reached over and turned on the radio. A blast of unfamiliar rock and roll. When it was over, the over- slick DJ’s voice said, “And that was ‘Helter Skelter,’ from the Beatles brand- new album, the white one. And now for something a bit older, the Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations’.”
As the theramin bounced around, echoing the wooziness in Chad’s skull, Bobby said, “I know one of them.”
Chad glanced over. Bobby, he noticed, was handsome. It wasn’t just his eyes. He had beautiful features, full lips. If Chad were gay…
“Who?” he asked.
“One of the Beach Boys.”
“Ah.” Without quite thinking of what he was doing, he reached over and put his hand on Bobby’s denim- clad knee. They stared at each other as the overdubbed voices on the radio la- la- lahed.
“Dennis, “ Bobby said. “Dennis Wilson. He’s the only one of them who actually surfs, you know. His brother Brian is actually kind of crazy.” He reached down and slowly, deliberately pulled Chad’s hand up to mid- thigh. “I’m a musician, too.”
Chad slid his palm up Bobby’s inseam till the edge of his hand was right up against the stranger’s crotch.
“Do it,” Bobby said. “Go on.”
So Chad started rubbing Bobby’s crotch, which quickly swelled up beneath his touch. Bobby leaned back and pushed his crotch up against Chad’s hand. “It’s all good, right?” He smiled a devilish grin. “So go ahead and do it.”
Chad slid a finger between the buttons of Bobby’s fly. It was hard and hot in there. No underwear. The sound of dangerous waves pounded in Bobby’s ears. He’d hardly ever touched another guy’s dick, not since last summer in the Haight. He had been too much of a surfer for the hippies up in San Francisco, though, just like he was too much of an acidhead for the surfers down here. He didn’t feel like he fit in anywhere, except when he was on his board.
The music had been replaced by a grating commercial for used cars. Bobby reached over and turned the radio off. “Let’s go in back,” he said.
Chad had turned the rear of the van into a makeshift bedroom, with the ripped- out seat replaced by a mattress on the floor.
The surfer hauled himself over the front seat and into the bed, followed by Bobby, who landed right on him so they were face- to- face.
After a long moment, Bobby leaned down and put his mouth on Chad’s. Chad opened his lips and felt Bobby’s wet, probing tongue enter his mouth. His dick, which until then had been only nervously half- hard, swelled up inside his shorts.
The long kiss ended. “You taste salty,” Bobby said with those remarkable lips of his. “And you need to get fucked.”
Chad was nowhere near so sure. Suddenly a little scared, he squirmed to get out from beneath Bobby. But Bobby grabbed Chad’s wrists, pinned him firmly to the mattress, and ground his crotch against Chad’s. “You want it, surfer boy. You know you do.”
And Chad did, sort of. He nodded docilely.
Bobby took one of his hands off Chad’s wrist, reached down, and undid Chad’s shorts, pulling them down to mid- thigh.
“Hard, I see,” Bobby kind of sneered. “You gonna be a good boy?”
Chad nodded again. He didn’t know how he’d gotten himself into this situation, but here he was.
Bobby rose to his knees, his head smack dab against the VW’s roof. “Pull off your shorts,” Bobby said. His face was morphing like crazy. Like crazy. Chad did as he was told.
Bobby, meanwhile, was drawing the curtains on the van’s windows. “I’m gonna fuck you, you know.”
Chad nodded a third time. Third time’s the charm, he thought, irrelevantly.
“Now unbutton my jeans. And take my dick out.”
Chad hesitated. “I don’t think I want to do this after all,” he said, his voice hollow in the universe.
Bobby hauled off and slapped him across the face. Chad shut his eyes, kaleidoscopes pinwheeling behind his lids. From a long way away, came a voice. “Get a grip, surfer boy. You won’t be the first man to get fucked, you know.”
Chad pictured himself riding the gray- green of the Pacific, balanced there in the eternity between freedom and death. He opened his eyes. Bobby was frighteningly beautiful now. He reached up and unbuttoned the stranger’s Levis. A big, hard, uncut dick sprang forth.
“Touch it. Stroke it.”
Eternity.
“Go on. Touch my fucking cock. You know you want to. Look at yourself. You’re rock hard.”
Chad looked down at his own smallish dick, standing straight up from a flurry of blond pubic hair. The man was right. He reached up and laid his fingertips on Bobby’s cock. The hard flesh jerked upward at his touch.
“Wrap your hand around it. You know how to jack off, don’t you? Even surfers must jack off.”
Chad wrapped his hand around the thick, hard rod of flesh. He’d never touched anything odder, more desirable, more frightening in his life. He began stroking Bobby’s penis. The foreskin slid back and forth, concealing and revealing the angry- red cockhead. He remembered back to the time he’d crashed at the commune in the Haight, when the older man who ran the place crawled into bed with him. His dick had been hooded, too. But he hadn’t fucked Chad. He hadn’t even tried.
“Pay attention, surfer boy.”
“Huh?”
“I told you to suck it.”
Chad hesitated, then kissed the head of Bobby’s cock.
“Suck, don’t kiss.”
Chad wrapped his lips around the flesh. It tasted salty, like the ocean, but sweetish, too. And — he had to admit it — slightly rank. He opened wider and took the tip of the dick into his mouth. It was a not unpleasant sensation to be sucking on someone’s cock. He slid as far down on it as he could.
“That’s right.” Bobby’s hand pushed down on the back of Bobby’s blond head. The surfer began to gag. Bobby pressed harder, then relented. Chad, slobbering, came up for air.
“Pretty good,” Bobby said. “Pretty good.”
Chad licked the underside of Bobby’s cock, then ran his tongue over his balls, down to the musky place between Bobby’s lean, furry thighs.
“Yeah, you’re gonna do all right.”
Amazingly, Chad felt that he was just exactly where he belonged. “I want you to fuck me,” he said, still between the man’s legs.
“Suck me some more first. Get me sloppy wet.”
Chad’s mouth went back on hard dick for a while. On acid, it might as well have been an eternity.
“Been fucked before?”
Cock still in his mouth, Chad shook his head, careful not to get his teeth involved.
“Then this is gonna be fun. More fun. Get on your fucking back. Now.”
Chad slid his mouth off Bobby’s hard dick and did as he was told.
“Legs up, surfer boy.” Bobby spit on his hand and reached down for Chad’s hole.
His knees near his ears, Chad felt one fingertip push inside, then another. “Ow,” he said. “Easy.”
“Just relax and keep breathing.” Suddenly, Bobby seemed almost kind. And then he pushed his fingers further inside.
It felt both amazing and awful. Awfully amazing. Amazingly awful.
“That’s it, loosen up your ass,” Bobby said.
Chad wasn’t aware he was loosening up anywhere. For a moment, he worried he might not be clean back there. But that worry got driven from his mind when Bobby shifted around, the swollen head of his big spit- wet dick now pushing up against Chad’s hole.
“Oh fuck,” he said, “I don’t think I can take…”
“Shut up.” Bobby leaned over, pinning down Chad’s wrists again. And then Bobby’s cock was suddenly inside him. Sharp pain.
“No.”
Bobby pushed further inside. Chad felt like he was being ripped open.
“No.” But less convincing this time.
And then something — Kundalini? — exploded in his guts, in his very being.
Bobby began stroking in and out, and Chad, wrists still pinned, legs splayed, felt himself opening up to this astonishing, grotesque, improbable union. “Fuck me,” he murmured.
“What was that?”
Louder. “Fuck me… please.”
Bobby quickened his pace.
Now things were thoroughly out of control, more overwhelming than the biggest wave.
Bobby pounded away, his face melting and rearranging and melting again; for one terrifying moment, Chad thought he saw fury there.
And then the fucking started to hurt, to burn.
“It… hurts.” Chad gritted his teeth.
Bobby leaned further over and, astonishingly, kissed Chad softly on the lips. Or maybe Chad hallucinated it.
“Oh fuck. I’m going to come, surfer boy.”
And with a massive groan, Bobby shot off into Chad’s ass, thrusting again and again. Chad felt that he was being pierced, filled up, swept away. Mandalas swirled. And again.
And then it was over. Bobby finally released Chad’s wrists, rolled off him, and, without asking, grabbed the still- damp wetsuit and wiped himself off. He left his jeans down around his thighs.
Chad still lay there, the Kundalini or whatever it was receding, the waves in his body calming, coming to rest. His ass was sore, a throbbing ache. The van smelled faintly of shit.
“You want to come, surfer boy?”
Chad hadn’t really thought about it, but he did. He wanted to come. His dick was almost completely soft, but it responded eagerly to his touch. He put his hand to his lips, licked his palm, and reached down again.
Outside the van, there were the sounds of shouting and laughter, a car radio blasting, then fading away, accompanied by a screech of tires. Bobby was kneeling beside Chad, watching intently as the lean blond surfer jacked himself off.
Chad looked down at his hand on his hard cock like it was someone else’s, feeling a million miles away. It seemed like he was never going to come, He reached over with his other hand, grabbing Bobby’s now- soft cock. Another man’s dick. Another man’s cock in his hand. And then Chad did come, the very essence of his being flowing endlessly out of him, spouting like a whale, flowing like the sea.
“Nice load,” Bobby said.
“Thanks. And thanks for fucking me.”
“Oh, my pleasure.” Was than an evil grin, or just a smile?
“Hey, you still want to meet the Beach Boy?” Bobby was pulling up his jeans. “You’ll have to drive. I don’t have a car, myself.”
“Um, sure.” Chad was coming down from the acid now, and recovering from the fuck. He figured he could make a go of it, driving. And he was strangely reluctant to say goodbye to Bobby. “Where is he?”
“His place is in Pacific Palisades. Actually, I’m kind of staying there myself.”
A longish drive. He found himself wondering how Bobby had come to be here at the beach. “Sure. We can go.”
“Cool. There’s someone else there I’d like you to meet, too. And I’ll lay some mescaline on you, no charge.” Bobby pulled a fat joint out of his pocket, lit it, took a drag, and handed it to Chad.
As they drove up the Pacific Coast Highway in the late afternoon, Chad felt his consciousness returning to normal. He was weary, sure, tired and drained. But also enlightened in a way he hadn’t been before. He looked over to Bobby in the fading light. It hadn’t just been the drugs. The man was handsome. He reached over with his gearshift hand and gave Bobby’s leg a squeeze.
“Don’t go getting any ideas,” Bobby said. “I’m straight, remember?”
“Sorry.” Chad took his hand away.
A few miles later, Bobby said, with surprising vehemence, “Life is shit.” But when Chad looked over, Bobby was smiling. And then Bobby began to hum. “Good Vibrations.”
It was sundown by the time they pulled into the driveway of Dennis Wilson’s house; the place was bathed in a maybe- infernal red glow.
As Chad shut down the VW, the front door opened. A gnomish, bearded man emerged and strode over to the van, looking somewhat suspicious.
“Oh, hey Bobby,” the man said, relaxing. “Who’s this?”
“This is my new friend Chad.” He turned in the surfer’s direction and smiled. “Chad, meet Charlie Manson.”
• • •
is the editor of Homosex: Sixty Years of Gay Erotica, for which he received a Lambda Literary Award, and of Leathermen. He’s the author of the award-winning Hotter Than Hell and Other Stories, and of In Deep; Sex Parties 101; and Kinkorama: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Perversion, as well as the online serial “The Dirty Boys Club.” His work has also been published in nearly 300 anthologies. He co-hosts, with Carol Queen, the San Francisco performance series Perverts Put Out!, and hangs out lecherously at www.simonsheppard.com.
