King Perry (12 page)

B
ACK
in the Hammock, I let Perry crawl in first. I know several lovely Alcatraz spots for camping, each with its subtle advantages. I prefer the Hammock, because the ocean is so close yet can’t touch us. I always pretend I’m Robinson Crusoe, my third night away from civilization, accepting my new reality. Another advantage: we can use San Francisco’s marina as our nightlight, no flashlights needed.

I assign him the chore of unrolling the sleeping bag while I unpack some necessities.

“Get naked. And get in the bag.”

He smirks and asks, “Ski mask on or off?”

“Your choice. But hang on, hang on. I’d like to see you do a crime-spree striptease for me, Perry.”

He chucks his ski mask at me.

“I’m serious. Take off your clothes in a sexy stripper way.”

He grins until he sees I’m not kidding, and my suggestion isn’t really a suggestion.

“C’mon.”

I make myself comfortable on my knees. “Make it sexy, baby.”

Perry starts to object, but my stupid smile informs him that arguing is pointless. I’ve been told I can be stubborn. He first untugs his two shirts, and it’s less sexy than efficient, but he half laughs and tries to swing his hips.

“C’mon. Put some X-ratedness into this.”

Perry communicates his annoyance with a deliberate look and tries to add a dance, but the movement is more “feet on hot coals.” He stops and frowns my way.

He says, “C’mon.”

“Okay, switch gears. Turn around. Face the ocean.”

He does.

I move to stand behind him, put my hands on his stomach.

I say into his ear, “Pretend we’ve been dating for a year and just returned from our one-year anniversary dinner.”

“Wearing ski masks?”

“Maybe. We went to our favorite Thai restaurant, ordered panang curry, and we drank an expensive Prosecco, which I know you like.”

He is still. “I do like Prosecco. How did you—”

I say, “Shhhhhhhh.”

I sway him gently, letting him feel me, wrapping my arms around his chest, and kissing his neck a few times.

“We both confessed our desire to live together, and soon. We are in love. Take off your clothes like that night instead.”

He does not move in my arms, makes no attempt to start undressing.

I think the striptease might have been easier.

I wrap my whole body around him, letting him feel the presence of me at first, that warmth, then pressing my lips to his neck, more subtle pressure than actual kiss. “I don’t like how you leave the seat up all the time, and also your—”

“I never leave the seat up.”

“Okay, I always leave the seat up, and you’re going to have to get used to that if we live together. Plus, babe, you eat grapefruit in an irritating way.”

He reaches for his top shirt buttons, and his movements are slow, thoughtful. It’s not particularly sexy.

I say his name quietly into his ear, more elongated croaking than actual pronunciation.

When he reaches his last button, he turns to face me. His face stays almost blank, a curious flicker of something which makes me examine him closer.

In a low voice, I say, “Happy anniversary, babe.”

He flinches but pushes his hips against me, rubbing against me. His open palms explore my chest, and his fingers finally rest against my top shirt button, beginning to unbutton me.

I put my arms around his lower back, tracing either side of his spine with my thumbs. I sway us a little bit, pretending our favorite song sings from a nearby stereo. I wonder what that song might be.

Even though my shirt is completely unbuttoned, he leaves his arms on my chest, a barrier between us. Creating a scene in which he wants to find himself, a loving relationship, has thrown him off balance again, another forced intimacy that he can’t ignore but can’t fully embrace. He wants the anniversary night. He does. But he couldn’t possibly let himself feel that kind of love with me. I am nothing but a weekend boyfriend and already not a very good one.

He pushes my shirt back over my shoulders, until it can drop no further without me unlocking my hands behind his back. He moves with me, his lips brushing mine in an intentional soft dragging that only lovers have permission to perform.

I say, “Do you imagine us having a favorite song?”

His face changes as I ask this, a shadow of fear passing across him. Too real. Too much. I may have pushed a little too far.

He says, “It’s cold. Do we really have to do this?”

Pull back, you moron.

“No, that’s enough. I don’t need the whole striptease; I wanted to see your face soft and beautiful after stuck in a ski mask for so long. You got there right away.”

He nods and looks away. “Okay.”

Relief? Disappointment?

“Get naked and hop in the sleeping bag. Leave on your undershirt if you think you might be chilly, but that blanket I pulled out is for wrapping the parts of us that stick out. My hunch is that two naked bodies in the sleeping bag will keep us warm enough.”

I kiss his forehead and return to my unpacking.

As he drops his jeans, I finally see his underwear: plain boxer briefs. Damn. I failed The Underwear Test. He was closer to not coming than I realized. Factor that in, Vin.

He turns to face the ocean as he kicks off his briefs, and I finally get to see his butt. Perry’s trim, so his ass is, by its own nature, nicely curved. It’s not a hard muscle butt, but beautiful in its gentle slope. Thick globes, so perfectly cut on the underside, and oooh—dimples. Love those dimples.

He crawls into the sleeping bag, wriggling around until he’s comfortable.

Still clothed, I hand him a crystal flute.

“Champagne?”

His eyebrows arch in surprise, but he nods.

I rest the bottle against his back inside the sleeping bag, which makes him shiver. I uncork the bottle with a muffled pop and fill his flute, then mine, with frothy golden liquid. We toast silently.

Perry looks surprised. “This is good.”

“Yeah. I got it at the Schramsberg winery tour on Monday.”

Perry looks at me and says, “You really are a tourist.”

“Absolutely.”

As I sip, Perry faces the visible bit of skyline, holding the flute up to his eye and letting the champagne bubbles distort the city. I do the same and think about Armistead Maupin’s theory that San Francisco is the lost Atlantis.

I offer him a small plastic container. “Cracker? They’re rosemary flavored and they’re yummy with fresh artichoke and roasted garlic, which is in this container. Here.”

Perry takes a cracker, tentatively it seems. I shouldn’t read much into that gesture, but I try to read everything. Is he feeling shy with me? What’s happening in him right now?

We munch our crackers and some grapes I produce, a meager supper but filling enough. I supply fresh mint leaves to cleanse the palate and produce a chocolate orange for desert. I lie next to him outside the sleeping bag, still dressed, with my arm wrapped around him. Facing the ocean, I feed him a chocolate slice as we discuss San Francisco, how he enjoys living here, how different from where he grew up in Arizona. Would he return to the desert someday? Maybe. Perry is noncommittal.

The ocean lulls us into a slow thudding groove, the same waves disappearing and reappearing over and over and over.

Vig-grr, vig-grr….

Crap, not that again.

“Listen to this. Do you think the words
stone stairs
sound like a right angle? Say it a couple times and you’ll see what I mean: stone stairs, stone stairs, stone—”

“Don’t scare me with your crazy word shit.”

“First of all, I didn’t mention this at all while we were climbing the stone stairs, respecting your request, and secondly, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re not afraid anymore. We’re in the same danger as when you woke up from the nap, and you don’t even care.”

He is quiet for a moment.

He says, “I feel like we should be telling ghost stories.”

I kiss his warm neck. “Tonight is for romance. Ghost stories tomorrow.”

“Well then, how about how you know where to sleep on this island, how to unlock the doors and stuff.”

“Same ghost story. I have good answers to those questions, but not tonight. Tomorrow over breakfast. I brought yummy croissants from Tartine’s. I call dibs on the chocolate one. Or half dibs. I’d share.”

Perry pushes back to bump my chest, which signifies his acceptance of the situation and also lets me know he’d rather have answers right now.

“I can’t believe this,” he says, staring toward the slice of available skyline. “I had sex in Alcatraz. This is the craziest fucking night of my life.”

“It’s only Friday.”

“Yeah, I know. I assume tomorrow we’re swimming out to Shark Island in hamburger swim suits.”

“I love it. Porterhouse flippers for our feet.”

We speculate for a while longer on tomorrow’s potential adventures, enjoying the champagne and chocolate orange, and then Perry twists around to kiss me. His enthusiasm surprises me. I worry for a second that I have created an adrenaline junkie, but I doubt it—those are rare. I assume his enthusiasm relates to the brilliant moon, the stunning skyline, the champagne, or the thrill of running down those stairs during our escape. Or the big cum shot. This night intoxicates me too, which is why I return his kiss with vigor.

Dammit.

At least it’s not Billy.

A few minutes later, the kisses become something wet and hungry, and we mutually reach the unspoken conclusion that snack time is definitely over. I take off my leather jacket and toss it in the grass behind us. My unbuttoned flannel shirt goes next. Perry works my belt, then unbuttons my jeans and unzips.

I appreciate his eager assistance.

I strip my T-shirt up over my head, and in our dim lighting, I see in Perry a renewed lust. He was attracted to me in the art gallery, then, I bet, repulsed by my speech. Ever since then, on the pier, in the prison, I’ve been pushing him away and drawing him closer and somehow, shirt off, and my own boxer-briefs visible, that flicker of attraction explodes into a wall of flame, and everything about him—fingers, eyes, hungry smile—all send the same message: he’s fucking ready.

But I won’t let him strip my underwear. I grab my hardening dick and trace a finger through the wet precum stain near my head.

“Suck the fabric,” I command quietly, and he does it.

I bend my knees forward, and he gets the message to follow me to the ground. My jeans are still only halfway down, bunched around my calves.

He breathes heavily, groaning and twisting his lower half in the sleeping bag, humping the earth as he sucks and licks, moaning occasionally as my cock gets harder and thicker.

I back off and stand up, and he groans, then chuckles.

I start unlacing my boots.

He says, “You really camp here, don’t you? This night is… it’s no big deal.”

“I have never brought anyone to Alcatraz; I’ve been waiting for years for just the right man. After our amazing night here together, I’ll probably never bring anyone else. I’d say it’s a big deal.”

He nods, more pleased by this answer than he thinks he lets on.

With my jeans and underwear kicked to the side, I bring my dick wet with precum right to his lips, and Perry opens his mouth to say, I believe, “Damn.”

I wreck his pronunciation by pushing inside him, and he gives up the word instantly.

Right away, we find the right groove, the suck groove, and I begin to speak.

“The kings gathered to greet the dawn in the ancestral fields, to let that gold wash over and through them. Each king wore a glorious shirt, beautiful raiment. Chilling blues so vivid you involuntarily gulped because seeing that color felt like gulping cold water. Pumpkin browns that smelled like Thanksgiving. Finch yellows, chili reds almost hot to the touch, every imaginable color and style. Some shirts were simple, beautiful because they were hand sewn with intention by a beloved.

“The kings’ only census came in greeting the dawn. Kings checked in from all over the world, the Vietnamese kings, old Swedish fishmonger kings, young Nigerians who raced to greet the dawn with laughing enthusiasm. Their joy was matched only by those from Australia who swaggered toward the desert sunrise with a subtle and confident thrill.”

Perry makes no acknowledgement that he hears this, he’s so passionate in his cocksucking. I pull his head off my dick and dangle it in front of him, slick and juicy under bright California moonlight.

“Repeat it back to me.”

He does a less-than-adequate job, so I slap my cock head against his cheek and nose and then place my cock on his lips. My grip on his skull makes it clear he may go no further. I repeat the passage much the same way, this time adding and subtracting a detail, changing the colors of a few shirts but keeping it mostly the same, all while I rub my dick over his lips. He moans, and it fucking turns me on.

“Repeat it back to me.”

He does better the second time around—not much better, but he remembers the kings gathering at dawn and repeats back a few of the colors.

“Suck on my cock. Suck down the story at the same time. Find the rhythm.”

He nods.

I plow my wet dick into his throat, and he groans in relief. I repeat the first few sentences again, the way they greet the dawn, adding a white shirt so stark you involuntarily squint. I guide his cocksucking efforts, fucking into him on the best words.

“Attendance at dawn revealed how many kings got lost on their way to find their missing brothers. The loss of a single man devastated all, because how would the kingdom survive without its one true king? They could never be complete without every man recovered.”

He gulps, and his closed eyelids flex.

“Quite a few got lost: the Accounting King, The Forgiver King, and The King Who Loved Turtles. Kings who maintained the golden orchards now worked at—”

Perry spits out my cock.

“You already said that part with the King Who Loves Turtles.”

“Did I?”

“Back in Alcatraz.”

“Did I?” I pretend to reflect where I left off. Were you listening, Perry? Did you hear what I actually said? “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t I tell the story, Perry, and you suck my dick?”