Into the Sunset

I took Shawn to the Westside Bar and Lounge as punishment. We were sailing up the New Jersey coast toward New England on a Summer Solstice group cruise, which had put in to Atlantic City for a night at the casinos. Although we were doing this cruise to have fun, I'd been able to finagle it into a business trip too. We'd reconditioned a forty-three-foot 1987 Tartan sailing sloop at our marina in North Wildwood and were test running it before turning it back to the owner. In addition to Shawn and me, we'd taken on two college kids to help crew, and therein lies the rub. The previous night, Shawn had gotten laid by one of the college kids and, when I upbraided him for it, he got all "we're not married and I'm not tied down to one man" on me.

As punishment for that, I'd brought him to a gay friendly club in Atlantic City to show him that this behavior could work both ways. It worked a charm. He didn't even see it coming.

We were at the bar and I was eyeing the room, picking out my mark. I was pretty confident. Before I'd decided it was time to settle in and Shawn and I had formed a partnership that I had thought went much farther than taking over the Bascom Boatworks in North Wildwood, I'd been a champion cruiser. I'd never had trouble getting a man to go with me. And since then the rigors of reconditioning sailboats—and racing them too—had only enhanced my muscle tone and deepened my tan.

And as I looked around I could tell that there were several men there who were interested. But then he walked into the bar, with a younger man—a man who looked much like Shawn—and I knew I had my mark. He was maybe in his late forties or early fifties and he carried himself like he owned the room. He was tall and thinnish, with a great, chiseled-featured face and dark hair with distinguishing gray sideburns. And he was dressed like a model. Everything just right for this venue and screaming of refinement and expense. His hair was groomed like he was about to go on camera, an initial impression that later made me want to laugh.

The two of them sat at a table, with the younger guy with him coming up to the bar for their drinks. While he was doing so, I caught the eye of the older man and held his gaze long enough to give him my best winning smile. After that he couldn't take his eyes off me. I broke the eye contact and purposely looked around the room and smiled at other men and even engaged the unwitting Shawn in enough conversation for him to think I was there for him. But each time I looked back at the distinguished older gentleman he was still looking at me.

He was perfect for my purposes for a couple of reasons. My thing with older men had been a subject of tension between Shawn and me early in our relationship. He was the first younger man I had been with, and he once teased me about having made that first aging step in my life from when I was turning from being the young stud to being the older seeker. That hadn't gone down well with me—particularly because of the basis of truth in what he said—and I had lowered the boom on him, saying I still might return to older men because they were more experienced and mature lovers. Since then, he had been skittish whenever I was chatting up an older man in his presence.

The other reason this was the mark for me, however, was because he had come in with a younger man. It wouldn't just be cuckolding Shawn, it would be leaving both Shawn and another younger guy high and dry when I waltzed out of the bar with the older man.

The older man signaled an invitation for me to join him at his table as his companion was returning with their drinks. I, in turn, motioned that I wouldn't be averse to having him come to the bar, and he was up and moving, taking his drink glass from the hands of his startled companion in passing, before his companion got back to the table. It was important to me that he come to me. It is very important to me to be in control. I prided myself on always being in control.

So, he came up to the bar, leaving his companion alone and sulking at the table and Shawn off to the side looking more than a little worried. It was all working quite well.

"You haven't noted that you haven't seen me around here before," I said when we'd clinked glasses and had each taken a sip of our own. "Isn't that the usual opening line?"

"It might be," he answered with a perfectly aligned and white-toothed smile, "but I've never been in here before. You?"

"No, I just sailed in from the Atlantic. This is supposed to be a casino stop on a group sail up to Cape Cod from Cape May."

"You overshot then, I think," he said with an engaging little laugh. "The casinos are on the beach."

"Yeah, I figured that. But I thought I'd stop in here first and check out the local scene. Not too lively."

"And you like lively, do you?"

"Not all that much. I like to be in control and I like to drive."

He gave me a sharp look then, and I could see that he picked up the signal—and, more important, that he was still interested. The sorting out of top and bottom had been made as well as the contract of interest. It was just that easy.

"You alone on this sail into the bar?"

"Sort of," I answered. And I looked over his shoulder and was happy to see that Shawn was apoplectic over this answer.

"Sort of?" he asked.

"Enough if I see something I like," I answered.

"You say you came to see a casino. I'm hoteling in a casino—the Bortaga, in the marina district. If you sailed into Atlantic City, we could probably see your sailboat from my hotel window."

"I think I'd like that."

I looked at neither Shawn nor the older guy's companion as we moved to the door.

"Having sailed in, I have no wheels," I said as we walked.

"I have a car. OK with you?"

"Sure, if you let me drive. I always drive, and I drive hard."

I already had an arm around his shoulder, and I could feel him trembling deliciously at my double entendre.

We would have gone to the window to see if we could see the sailboat if he wasn't in such a rush to be fucked. He had me half peeled and was sucking my cock before I'd made it half way into the Bortaga hotel room. I let him do his thing for a few minutes, but I wanted to show him who was in control, so I shoved him toward and down on the bed on his back and relieved him of his trousers. I turned him onto his stomach and we wrestled a bit as he tried to turn back.

"I like it better—" he started to say, but I grabbed his balls and squeezed.

"We do it the way I like it," I said.

He yelped and whimpered when I grabbed his balls, but he quieted right down and stayed on his stomach.

He obviously was expecting action this night as he had condom packets and a bottle of lube sitting conveniently on his nightstand.

He was purring as I opened him up with my tongue and then lubed fingers, and he was moaning and sighing and thanking me as I came up on the bed and settled down in the saddle with my knees on either side of his hips and worked my way into his hole and began to stroke him.

I did turn him half way through and finish him in the position he indicated he preferred, which he seemed to love, but by then I'd shown him who was in charge.

As he watched me dress, still spread-eagled on the bed and seemingly unable to close his legs, he murmured, "I'd like to see you again."

"That's not likely," I answered. "I don't live here."

"Neither do I. I can come to you."

I wanted to smile. That's what I wanted to hear. Evidence of full control.

"Maybe I'll see you around sometime. You were a good lay."

His companion was working on inserting his key in the door when I opened it, still buttoning up my shirt. The older man hadn't moved from his legs-spread position on the bed, but he had watched me dress and his eyes had followed me to the door. The companion looked at me and anger flashed across his face. Then he looked at the bed and saw the older man and his facial expression hardened.

I could tell he didn't like what he'd found, but there wasn't much he could do about it. I'd already fucked his sugar daddy and I was nearly twice as big as he was. I just started a saunter toward the elevators and whistled a little tune. I had no idea what the tune was, but it had been revolving around in my head all day.

When I got down to the sailboat in the marina, I found that Shawn had gotten the point.

"You left me at the bar."

"He took me to his hotel room and I fucked him. I like older men, you know, and as you have declared your independence—"

"They're gone. He's gone. Sam's left."

"They were gone when you got back to the boat?" I asked. We were talking about the two guys we'd gotten to crew for us, including the one who had caused tonight's activities by fucking Shawn.

"No. I gave them train fare back to their college. Said we wouldn't need them anymore. I got the point."

"Good," I said.

"It's late. Come on down into the cabin."

"If I told you to strip and we'd do it right here on top of the cabin, would you do it?"

"Yes."

"Good answer. Go on down into the cabin. I've be down there in a few minutes."

"That was Clayton Trumble, you know?"

"Who?"

"The man you fucked. Clayton Trumble. He's a TV anchor at one of the big stations in Baltimore. A big name in Baltimore. I thought maybe you knew who he was."

"Doesn't make a fuck's difference to me who he was," I answered. "I went with him to make a point to you."

"So you're not going to see him again?"

"I wasn't planning on it. But if I think you haven't gotten the point I was making, maybe—"

"I got the point. I'll be down in the cabin. I hope you've—"

"I've saved enough for you," I said. "Don't you worry about that."

* * * *

It wasn't long after we'd gotten back to North Wildwood and life had returned to normal at the Bascom Boatworks that the name of Clayton Trumble intruded into my life again. This time it was a week-long series of titillating news reports on the local TV station of how the heretofore dignified and upright Baltimore TV news personality, Clayton Trumble, had been caught up in the net of a police raid on a male brothel near the Fort Detrick military base to the west of Baltimore. The reports showed footage of a man who quite clearly was the same man I'd fucked in the Atlantic City casino hotel room weeks before coming out of his arraignment for solicitation of a male prostitute and trying to cover his face—quite unsuccessfully—from the TV cameras. Suddenly rather than reading the news, Trumble had become the news. Other reports covered news reporters interviewing each other on how surprised they were and what a blow this was to Trumble's professional career. Then there were the aborted attempts to trap his wife of thirty years into an interview on the lawn of their suburban home in Towson. Only the explosion at a power plant in Glen Burnie in which four workers were incinerated pushed the Trumble story off the air waves.

I only saw any of this in passing, although when I heard Trumble's name, I always looked up to make sure once again that it was the same guy I'd fucked. I felt sorry for him, but it didn't really mean all that much to me. It didn't mean much to me, that is, until the day Shawn sauntered into the boatworks building and brought the story back onto center stage for me.

"Bet you can't guess who I saw walking down Ocean Avenue just now."

"Beetle Bailey? Genghis Kahn?" I didn't even look up. I was shaving the side board of a sailboat to perfection in its curve to the bow and was only half listening to Shawn.

"Nope. That guy you did in Atlantic City. That TV reporter who was caught with his pants down."

I did look up then. "You sure it was him? I would have thought he'd gone to the West Coast by now."

"Yep, it was him. I had lunch at Groff's, and a waitress in there told me he was here even before I could ask about him. Would you believe he's Wildwood born and raised and has a house here? The scuttlebutt is that he's retreated here to hide from the press. They say he can't leave the state yet because he's tied up in this sticky solicitation court case. So you gonna look him up?"

"Of course not. You know why I did him. And we're fine on the score now, aren't we?"

"Yeah, sure."

When Shawn moseyed back out to the dock to go back to work on the sailboat rigging he'd been tinkering with, though, I did give some thought to Trumble. I felt sort of bad about him. I'd used him. And he was a pretty good lay—and I could have gone another couple of rounds with him if I wasn't just doing it to punish Shawn. But then I decided to just let it drop.

I wasn't able to let it drop, though. I didn't go looking for Trumble. But he did come looking for me.

"You told me you had a boatworks in North Wildwood. It could only have been one of three or four. It wasn't that hard to find you."

"But why did you even look for me?" I asked. This probably wasn't a very good time if I was wanting to turn him off. It had been hot in the boatworks building that afternoon and I'd stripped down to my shorts and he apparently had been there for some time, just inside the main doors, watching me work the laminate on the sailboat hull I had in there. When I looked up finally and saw him, he had that dreamy-eyed look about him that I recognized as want. And I must admit that he looked pretty good to me too.

"I think you know why I tracked you down. I don't feel like we had enough time, and I've been thinking a lot about you."

"Don't you think you're in enough trouble already? Yes, the news got down here too. I was pretty sick of it after a couple of days."

"I was sick of it before the first footage was broadcast."

"Yeah, I guess you would be. But then one reaps what one sows. That guy you were with in the Atlantic City bar? He still with you?"

"Jamie? No, he left me right after you and I. . . . He wasn't pleased with me. And he was getting tired of our relationship. Mostly because of Pamela."

"Your wife? Yeah, I could see how a wife would get in the way of a relationship like that."

"Pamela knew. We've had an arrangement since right after we were married. She enjoyed the perks that came with the life I led. And she has . . . interests of her own."

"Well, then, it's all hunky dory."

"You know it isn't," he said. "I'd like to go for a drink with you."

"Just a drink?"

"No, of course not."

"Sorry. And you don't know how sorry I am. I have to apologize to you. I was just using you to make my guy jealous. That wasn't nice, I know. You were great. I don't want you to think I'd toss you out of bed if things were different. But they're not. I'm solid with Shawn now. And I'd like to keep it that way."

"Shawn is the young man out on the dock? The guy I saw you with in the Atlantic City bar?"

"Yep, that's him."

"He work for you?"

"We work for each other. We have a partnership here. Both in the boatworks and in the bedroom."

"I see. Business partners. That would make it sticky, wouldn't it?"

"It works for us."

"I won't give up, you know. You asked why I'd want to continue with what's got me into trouble. I've hit bottom; there isn't much else that could go wrong for me professionally. I don't need the money, of course. My folks left me well off. I could live right here without working another day in my life. I could offer you—"

"I'm sorry. But as I said, Shawn and I are solid now."

I'd repeated this as much for Shawn as for Trumble. Shawn had come up to the edge of the door and was listening to us. Trumble turned and saw him, gave him an apologetic look, and then turned and left.

"He was telling it to you straight, you know," Shawn said. "He's not going to give up. I can see that he has it for you bad and that he's desperate. I wish that—"

"There's no problem, Shawn. You and I are solid now. I don't have any inclination to be with him."

"I wonder," Shawn said in a low voice, which might not have reached my hearing if the generator motor hadn't kicked off at that moment—although it did. Still, I pretended not to have heard it. And then in a louder voice, he said, "I don't think he's going to give up, though."

"I got it under control," I answered. "I'm in full control."

* * * *

I was out in the late afternoon in late summer off Stone Harbor in a speedboat we'd been reconditioning the engine on when I saw a small sailboat—a Laser—clearing the intercoastal waterway above North Wildwood and set a course for straight out into the Atlantic. It caught my attention because it was too late in the day for a one-man craft to be out on the open ocean, and sailboats like this hugged the coast anyway. They didn't head straight out to sea.

It bothered me, and my first thought was that this was an inexperienced sailor and that he was headed for disaster. I couldn't bring myself just to ignore him and head back toward the marina myself when I had planned to.

When I looked out there and saw the mast of the vessel snap off and keel over to the side and into the water, I revved up the engine of the speedboat and headed out to help. Time was pretty much of the essence. The Laser was getting awfully close to the limits that the speedboat should be churning out in the Atlantic and night was coming on pretty fast.

When I came close to the Laser, I hailed it and didn't get a response. A little closer and I saw the figure of a man lying full out in the boat, and I thought that maybe he'd been knocked out by the boom when the mast keeled over.

When I got there and lashed our boats together, I climbed into the Laser and turned him over. It was Clayton Trumble. And he was groggy but not unconscious. The first thing I saw wrong was an open—and empty—pill bottle near his hand. The second was that the boat was flooding. He had pulled the drain plugs and the sailboat was taking on water fast.

I barely had time to pull him into my boat and untie his before it slipped under the waves. I started CPR on him, figuring I needed to get him breathing and then I'd try to get the pills out of his system.

But he clung to me and CPR began to turn into something more intimate. A kiss. And then a real kiss. He was pawing me and pulling me to him. We wrestled, but quickly it wasn't any sort of life-saving drill but a sharing of lust in which he fired me up and wrapped his legs around my waist after he'd pulled my shorts off and had lost his. He fisted my cock and I returned the favor and in mere moments out there drifting on the ocean, we were in full fuck. And he was good. He was real good. This wasn't anything as tame as we'd done in the hotel room. He pulled me inside him and showed me that he had a very talented channel indeed, using his muscles to pull me ever farther in and setting them to undulate across my cock until my gasps were overshadowing his moans and I fired all cylinders deep inside him.

Luckily, the speedboat was drifting back toward the shore while we were fucking, and after I managed to extract myself from him, I took the helm and set course for the entrance into the intercoastal waterway above North Wildwood.

"You could have died out there."

"I wanted to," was his reply. "I don't know even how I managed to get out to sea. I don't know anything about boats. I just knew that there was nothing worth living for anymore—at least until what just happened. Didn't you feel it too? It was fantastic."

Well, yes it was pretty good, I thought. Fantastic I'd have to think about. But now he had maneuvered under me in the seat at the helm and was lapping me and running his hands all over my torso and fisting my cock and bringing it to life again. Now it was feeling fantastic.

"Cut the engine," he said, his voice full of lust.

"We're almost into the mouth of the—"

"Cut the engine unless you want someone on shore to see us fucking."

I cut the engine and threw the anchor over the side. We were in shallow enough waters now that our position would hold.