At first Chet thought the older man staring at him from across the bar at the top of the cruise ship was Jamaican. The man engaged his attention because he had the most compelling light-gray eyes, which went really well with his silver-gray hair and the black suit with black silky shirt and black tie with a hash pattern of silver strands. But the thought that the man was black was partially because the man had been in the shadows. When he came over and sat next to Chet, the college student could see that it was just because the man was olive skinned and had a really deep tan. It had been a glint from the strobe light in the bar glancing off the man's heavy, gold signet ring, which he wore on the middle finger of his right hand that had caught Chet's attention in the first place. It was only then that Chet became aware that the man was watching him.
Chet had come up to the bar late on the night of the cruise ship's departure from Tampa, Florida, for a five-day cruise to the Cayman Islands and Cozumel, Mexico, to escape the razing of his fraternity mates. The whole fraternity was on the cruise for spring break, and they had dubbed this the "get Chet laid" memorial cruise. They thought Chet was the only virgin in the fraternity, and they had decided to remedy this on the cruise. They now were down in one of the fraternity guys' cabin and gangbanging a drunken college girl. Chet had been dragged into the cabin and told that "this was his night," but he'd managed to escape and had come up to the bar at the top of the ship where the rich, old people hung out. He trusted his frat brothers wouldn't come looking for him here.
"Are you flying solo tonight, young man? Or do you welcome company?"
He had a smooth, baritone voice, and his speech was as refined as he looked. There was a bit of an accent. Something South American maybe. He could be an Argentine or a Brazilian. He must be in his fifties, Chet thought. But he was in really good shape for an old man. Chet was interested. He'd come on the cruise looking for something, but not for what his frat brothers were looking for for him. He couldn't reveal his interests to them, of course. It was hard enough revealing them to himself. But he was pretty sure he was gay. He was sort of hoping to find that out on this cruise.
Chet actually had deeper hopes than that. He was sort of interested in finding an older man to take care of him. Studying sports management was OK—he liked all sorts of sports and they kept him in great shape—but a cousin of his was living with an older man and taking care of him physically and the older man took care of him very well financially, and Chet fantasized the possibility of doing the same someday.
Not that Chet was really up on what a life of sex with an older man was all about. He'd fantasized the act with another man many times—usually with an assistant football coach at the university Chet worked with who was named Bud and was in his late thirties. But his actual experience with it had been limited and fumbled. The previous summer he'd worked as a counselor at a boys' camp, and the senior counselor and he had done just about everything with each other—kissing, hand jobs, mutual masturbation, and Chet had even gotten his cock in the other guy a little way—but neither of them had lasted more than thirty seconds at that. They had both been just too excited and inexperienced. Still, it told Chet that his interest was in men, not women.
Not that he'd ever let his frat brothers know that, if he could help it. It was such a bother, though, that they were determined to do something about it on this cruise. All of them, of course, fucked college girls like they were rabbits—and they were in what was a jock fraternity at Florida State University in Tallahassee, which was a major sports university. They could nail just about any coed there they wanted. Chet, a strawberry blond hunk, was as good looking as any of them. It was getting a little obvious that he was odd man out in the hetero college experience.
It was time for him to declare one way or the other, and if he declared the other, his days in the fraternity—and maybe even at FSU—were numbered.
"Sure, I'd like the company," Chet answered, hoping that the trembling inside him couldn't be discerned by the man. Chet found the mysterious man arousing, despite his age. He seemed so assured of himself and he was so good looking in a mature way, his chest muscles bulging under the form-fitting black silk shirt—in a muscular rather than a flabby way. And he didn't seem to have any flab on his midsection either, although he wasn't thin. He was built just like the FSU football assistant coach, Bud, who Chet fantasized about.
Chet had known that Bud had a younger man living with him, but the guy had been killed in a motorcycle accident early in Chet's freshmen year. Chet assumed the relationship between the two had been sexual, and Bud was certainly a sexy guy and he and Chet got along real well, but Chet knew so little about these things that he couldn't tell if Bud's interest was just a friend-to-friend thing or if he was interested in more. Whenever Chet thought about his cousin's arrangement of taking care of an older man, Bud was always the one who came to Chet's mind. But he just didn't know about these things.
"Let me buy you a beer," the man said, flagging down a waiter and giving him a cruise card to charge it to before Chet could respond. "You are probably the youngest and best-looking man in the bar," he said, turning back to Chet and touching the younger man's forearm with that right hand, which sported the gold signet ring and had those long, sensuous fingers. Chet got the impression that the man was a sensory by touch person—a Mediterranean type. So, maybe Italian?
"You have a slight accent I can't place," he said, not knowing anything else to say under the circumstances. He took a sip of the beer the waiter had just brought as the older man signed the charge slip. It was his third beer, and he was feeling a little disjointed—and a lot devil may care. "Are you Italian?"
"No," the man said, with a melodious laugh. "I'm Brazilian. My name is Julio. Yours?"
"I'm Chet."
"And you are one of the many college students on board? But not a freshman?"
"Yes. I go to FSU—Florida State University. I'm a sophomore."
"Ah, very good."
"Yes, it's a good university."
"I'm sure it is. I meant it's very good that you are older than a college freshman. Then I would have had to ask you another question."
Chet turned to look into the Brazilian's face, and instantly the light-gray eyes possessed his. There was a slight smile on his lips. If he had been asking Chet if he was old enough to have sex, he had covered the issue effectively and smoothly. Chet half hoped this was the case. He was still skittish, but he'd told himself he came on this cruise not to be, if the opportunity arose. He took a large gulp of his third beer. And then another one.
"Here, let me order you another beer," the man continued. "I'm surprised you are up in the bar with the older people. I would have thought you'd be down in the main disco having a hot time dancing or already down in one of the cabins with a young woman. You are a strapping young man; very sexy. I imagine you have no trouble luring a young woman to one of the cabins."
"I'm with a fraternity—a fraternity of college athletes—and I'm sure that's what they are doing."
"Ah, yes, I saw you with a group of other beautiful and muscular young men at the pool before we sailed this afternoon. You are perhaps a champion swimmer or a football or basketball player?"
"None of those, actually. I'm in sports management, but I do play all of those sports. I'm just not on the varsity teams or have an athletic scholarship like most of my fraternity brothers."
"And these fraternity brothers are, perhaps, down in the cabins now having their way with young women?"
Chet gulped the last of the current beer, and Julio snapped his fingers. A waiter materialized instantly, and Chet had another beer in front of him.
"Just with one, actually," he answered. The beer was loosening his tongue as well as his inhibitions.
"Several young men fucking one young woman. What do they call it? A gang bang?"
"Yes."
"And they wanted you to do that too?"
"Yes," Chet admitted, after taking a gulp of beer. "They wanted me to fuck her too. They are calling this the 'get Chet laid' cruise. That's my name, Chet. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself earlier."
"No matter." Julio put a hand on one of Chet's thighs above the knee, and applied a bit of pressure. Chet felt the touch go through his body with an electric jolt. He took another swig of the beer.
"But you didn't want that sort of sex, did you?" Julio asked. "You wanted something else. Perhaps something with an older man. An experienced man, perhaps?"
"Perhaps," Chet answered in a small voice.
