The Seagull

With Apologies to Chekhov...

Derek was not the type who usually fell asleep at the beach. It was a clothing-optional beach and he was just too self-conscious. But on this Saturday morning, sunning his slender backside on a faded pink bath towel as the tide moved in, he must've dozed off.

Because when the thickish liquid substance, whatever the hell it was, rained down on his bare ass and lower back, it startled him. Startled him out of an instantly evanescent dream—a sex dream that evaporated with consciousness like a water droplet on a hot skillet. Derek's first thought was: seagull. A fucking seagull gliding by overhead. One of many. Bombs away! Then, as his sixth sense began to inform him he was not alone, he decided it must have been suntan lotion. White globs of it squeezed from a plastic bottle by some prankster. One of the Saturday morning regulars who, like Derek, haunted the thin strip of sand at this end of the beach. The gay end.

Derek's face was pointing the wrong way. South. The man casting his shadow on him was standing to his north. Derek rose up slightly from the waist and twisted his head around. Shielded his eyes. The man wasn't holding a bottle of Coppertone, however; he was holding a still-engorged cock of generous proportions, its peek-a-boo head glossy with freshly ejaculated semen. Christ!

"Sorry," the stranger said, sounding like he'd just run over Derek's dog. "I just couldn't help myself. Your body's so young and sexy and all, and you were lying here so..."

So what? Vulnerable?

In one athletic motion the man reached to his ankles and pulled his Speedo back up, tying the knot. A stain darkening the French-blue front. Then he turned and walked away. East. Toward the gently lapping bay waves. Others were advancing however, their feet kicking up dry sand. "Hey can we get in on this?" "That was hot!" "You know that guy?"

Derek wanted to roll over but he didn't want to get the stranger's cum on his ragged towel. So, in an equally athletic youthful motion, he rolled into a sitting position in the sand, at towel's edge. Put his sunglasses on. Wrapped his arms around his knees.

"Never seen him before," Derek replied, the cum now running down his backside to the sand.

"He just walked up and shot his load on you?"

"Something like that. I fell asleep."

The three guys standing between Derek and his badly needed saltwater bath were all regulars, though he knew not one of their names. All were naked and two of the three had or were getting, with the aid of a laconic hand, hard-ons. Derek, minding his own business after a long morning swim, had abruptly become the beach's small focus of erotic attention.

Derek's mother was also looking down at him. She too was naked. Her belly hollow and her tits small. A vertical scar running out of her triangle of light-brown pubic hair nearly to her navel. Compared to her three male companions her body was pale, very pale. She was pretty. Young and pretty. Lips painted.

Derek was embarrassed on two fronts. One, he didn't want his mother to see the cum running down his back; two, he didn't want her to realize the sight of her, naked like this, was giving him an erection. There was a wide, striped necktie lying between his legs on the towel (he was back on the towel now). Best he could, Derek tried to hide his passion with the wide end of the necktie. The kind his mom always used to buy for him to give his dad for Christmas. The stripes were red. On a French-blue background. It felt good against his cock. Silky. Sensual. Under different circumstances Derek might have rubbed it against his hard-on. Under different circumstances he might have inserted his erection up tie's hollow V-end and masturbated into it, much like the beach stranger had just done on his back.

Derek was sitting in a park now, on the grass. This was doubly embarrassing. He was sitting stark naked in a public park. He could be arrested for indecent exposure! His mother was dressed. For church it looked like. At a distance, downhill from where Derek sat, surrounded by amorphous bronzes, globs of public sculpture, his dad was advancing. In his khaki navy uniform. His mother's arms crossed under those small tits. She wasn't saying anything but she wore that look.

Why are you naked, young man?

Why is your towel pink? (Derek was back on the towel again.)

Is that sperm? Another man's sperm? Why is it dripping from your chin? Running down your chest?

Where's the son I used to know?

Who were those men just now? They were...indecent!

Derek is running toward the lapping bay waves, to wash his body clean, but something is holding him back. It is as if a short bungee cord has been attached to his waist and one of the beach regulars—some jokester—heels dug in and arms extended, is holding him back. From reaching his salty goal. While others—gay men naked or in Speedos—point and laugh at the spectacle.

"Fuck you!" Derek shouts.

"Is that a promise?" one of them.

"Nice mouth, boy!" another.

A lifeguard looks down at the running-in-place Derek from a very tall tower (red-striped like the necktie): "Hey! We don't allow that kind of language on this beach! Want to get banned?"

"So ban me! You think I give a shit about this fucked-up beach?"

"That's it! I'm calling the Coast Guard!"

Derek panics. He may've just committed a federal offense. He wonders if his frozen status extends to retreating from the waves? Can he turn around and hightail it out of here? To his Schwinn? Like a jet propelled off an aircraft carrier? Beat the red-and-white chopper before it lands?

The stranger—or a new stranger—is scrubbing Derek's backside. He's very kind. He keeps apologizing for the mess he made. They're in a condo, an upper floor. Very affluent. The shower is open. Has no doors or walls or glass. It's like a public shower at the beach except that the back wall is tiled. No, it's dark-grey slate. Must've cost a fortune, this bathroom. Derek's generous host is having problems. Getting rid of his telltale cum. Apparently it has adorned Derek's backside for so long it has turned to glue. A sticky, persistent, Gorilla Glue-like substance. Or pearls. Pearly growths. He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs. Harshly.

"Sorry."

The man keeps saying he's sorry. Some kind of opera aria is looping in the background. Puccini did he say? Sorry, sorry, sorry...

The man pushes Derek forward against the tile—the slate. It's coarse, sharp-edged. Derek's wet, naked body pressed against it. The man penetrates Derek. Says he's sorry, can't help himself. He fucks Derek, he cums.

"If I cum inside you I don't have to clean it off, do I?" he rationalizes.

"No." It makes sense, Derek has to admit.

"This is how it used to be in the navy," his father says, his uniform soaking wet, his zipper open, flagging cock out. Short. Thick.

"Really?"

"Except the showers were salt-water. You'll see, when you join up."

"I'm in prison, dad. I mean college! I'm not going into the military. If I can help it."

"You'll be drafted then. The army. Fodder. Better to be on a ship..." He went on to say something about fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes survival time on an aircraft carrier in the event of nuclear—

The bathroom was tilting. A sinking ship. Torpedos. Something. Abandon...!

Derek dove into the rocky shallows. To applause. The regulars proud of him. He'd had a little surprise adventure on the beach, the sand, and now he was...What's the term? Immersing himself? Baptism?

No, that's not it. Puccini was blasting through speakers on the beach. [aria] The lifeguard standing, fake-conducting in his red-striped tower. Put a Speedo on, asshole!

Derek rose. Ascended. Surfaced. Wiped his mouth. Of drool or cum, one. Salt. Foam.

He stood. The gentle waves lapping below his knees. Low tide. His naked peers at lap's grey edge laughing, pointing, applauding. Stroking themselves.

"That seagull nailed your ass, boy!"

"Direct hit!"

"I think it had it in for you!"

"Good thing it wasn't an enemy drone...!"

Fucking seagull.

Baptism's not the term for it, Derek's cleansing immersion. The term is—