Gene

This is a completed six-chapter story that will post within two weeks.

*****

Nathan Thorne had just made his first decision since landing in Key West—to go with an Audi 4 convertible rental rather than the Mustang that everyone else in line was getting—not getting, actually, had gotten and had already been on their way in while Avis tried to track down an Audi 4.

"Sorry about that," the woman at the counter said, giving Nathan a glorious smile. "Almost everyone goes for the Mustang in Key West. It once was Sebrings, but now it's Mustangs."

"Quite all right. I'm not in a hurry." He smiled back, politely. She still was looking like she wanted to swoon in his presence. He got a lot of that. And he

wasn't

in a hurry. But he was a little irritated that one of the first decisions he'd made—which car to rent—after weeks of not being able to make one, just floating along, struggling to get up in the morning and to make it to night without screaming or torturing himself with his feelings of guilt, seemed to have been a bad one.

Was coming to Key West a bad decision too? Was considering moving here permanently fatally flawed no sooner than he'd gotten out of the plane from New York via Miami?

The young woman at the counter turned back to him. "It's ready now, sir. I'm really sorry about the wait. You'll find it in bay 7 on the lot. You can wait for the courtesy bus, but it's only a five-minute walk. It's metallic blue."

"The bus?" Nathan asked, still distracted by his thoughts.

"No, sir, the car you've rented."

Nathan was afraid she was going to break her face she was smiling so hard. He noticed for the first time too that she'd unbuttoned the top two buttons of her uniform blouse while she'd been turned away from him. He'd already noticed that she had big tits.

"Are you meeting friends in Key West . . . or are you visiting alone?" she asked.

"A group of friends," Nathan answered, and, thanking her, he turned and left, hoping she hadn't seen the flash of pain or the lie on his face when he said that. The word "alone." It meant so much more to him now than it ever had before. And, yes, he was alone. Utterly alone. Twice over.

He was staying at the New Orleans House, right in the center of everything on Duval Street, he had been assured. He was trying the shock treatment; trying to jump back in with two feet. The young woman at the counter—quite the looker really—apparently hadn't zeroed in on the hotel address he'd given. Either that or she was terribly naïve and didn't know Key West very well. He wondered if she'd laugh or curse when she did look at it and realized what kind of hotel it was.

It didn't take more than ten minutes to get to Duval, the heart of Key West life, or to find the New Orleans House, which was on top of the Bourbon Street Pub, which Nathan would have been able to identify just from the clientele loitering around the entrance. After he'd parked and come around from the back of the place, he had to good-naturedly fend off several offers just getting through the door in the middle of the building that opened onto the stairway up to the hotel on the second floor.

The reception clerk gave him pretty much the same look and deference that the car rental woman had.

"Will yours be the only name on the booking, sir?" the clerk asked.

"Yes, I am here alone," Nathan answered, wincing again at the use of the word "alone."

"Not that it matters, of course," the clerk prattled on. "We have a very lenient policy on visitors to the rooms."

Was that a wink the clerk gave Nathan?

"That's good to know. I know there isn't much time left this afternoon, but is there a beach nearby? I've flown all the way from New York today, and I've been looking forward to dipping my toes in the water first thing."

"An appropriate one?" the clerk asked.

"Yes, if such a one exists."

"There is Higgs Beach and there is Fort Zackary Taylor Park. Both are south on Duval. For Higgs, turn east on South Street, south on White, and then west again on Atlantic. The Fort Zackary beach has areas giving more privacy." At this point the clerk definitely did give Nathan a wink. "For that, turn west on Truman and follow the signs. But it's getting late for the beach. The life will have already come up here on Duval . . . downstairs mainly . . . and I'll bet you—"

"Thank you. You say the room is right down this corridor."

"Yes. Our best. Room 21. A king with a queen loft bed and a full kitchen. And French doors out onto the balcony overlooking Duval. You did see the warning about the music, though?"

"Yes, that that club is just below and there will be music late."

"Yes."

"That's fine. I don't go to bed early, and the music will be good company."

The clerk couldn't help muttering, "The guests here go to bed at all times of the day and night, and not to sleep. And I bet it won't be long before you're doing the same. And kudos to any and all who manage it." But by then Nathan was already down the hall, out of earshot.

The room was big and was appointed as advertised. Nathan decided to take his suitcase up to the loft. The room up here was cozier and he was that much farther from the club floor of the Bourbon Street Pub below. When he had booked, he was feeling numb and had assumed that would continue until he used dynamite to get himself out of his funk, so the expectation of loud music late into the night seemed like just what he needed to help jolt him out of his lethargy and grief.

He went out on the balcony and looked down on Duval Street, which seemed to be getting busier by the moment. He heard a cat call and looked down at the sidewalk to receive an offer to come up and join him. But he just smiled, waved the offer off, and withdrew into his room. He changed into swim trunks, pulled shorts on over those, shrugged on a T, grabbed a towel, and clattered down the stairs and out onto the street in his sandals. Smiling his way through the whistles and requests to know him better, he escaped to the Audi 4, headed east on Duval and then south on Truman.

The clerk had been right—about both things. The sun was going down by the time he got out on the beach and the beach was nearly deserted. As he'd driven out on Duval all of the foot traffic seemed to have been heading toward the Bourbon Street Pub area. The clerk had also been right that there were rock outcroppings on this beach, creating pockets of privacy. Nathan found such a pocket area from where he could go down to the water and then come back and lay on his towel and be entirely alone.

He wasn't really alone on the beach, of course. The first couple of private areas between the rocks he had passed were occupied, by couples—coupling. He looked aside and moved briskly on from these. The memories were still painful to him. He was here to be alone. Wasn't he?

Each moment as he sat, knees bent up into his chest, on the towel and peered out into the ocean, moonlight shimmering off the surface of the gently rolling waves, he thought that it would be his last minute here, that he was ready to stand and return to his hotel. But he lingered, as if he was waiting for something. Why had he come out here at all? Was it because of what he'd heard about the Key West beaches?

What had he come to Key West for? Was it some sort of last-ditch effort to end this numbness? To regain feeling? To somehow find life again? To somehow bypass the pain and guilt he felt whenever he was able to feel anything at all?

It certainly wasn't to be alone. He could be alone in New York. He had been alone in New York for months.

It was time finally. Nathan moved to rise, but as he did so, his view to the water was blotted out. Someone was there.

"Oh, you're alone."

"Yes, no one else here," Nathan answered, as if conveying that whoever the owner of the voice was looking for was not to be found here.

"Do you want to be alone?"

That question was much too fundamental for Nathan to respond to immediately, and the young dark-haired man took that as a "no," entered the crevice in the rocks, knelt beside Nathan, and rocked back on his haunches.

"Hi, I'm Gene. You come here to hook up?"

Yet another fundamental question that Nathan didn't know the answer to. It perhaps was what he had wanted subconsciously by coming to Key West at all, but he hadn't openly considered the question.

"I just flew in today . . . from New York. Wanted to check the beach out."

"This beach?" the guy asked. He seemed so fresh and alive—in a cheery curly dark-haired athletic way that made anything he said sound innocent and natural. "You know what sort of beach this is?"

"I've heard," Nathan said.

"So, did you come to hook up or to be alone? Should I shove off?"

"No, it's fine. I was about to leave, but I can stay for a few more minutes."

The dark-haired hunk peered more closely at Nathan. "You look familiar. Have I met you before? You said that you just flew in from New York. And I'm usually in Boston. So maybe we've met in the Northeast somewhere? Go to any particular clubs up there?"

"More likely on TV. Not that we've met on TV—maybe you've seen me on TV. If you've ever seen the CBS drama,

The Pinnacle

, I play the young stockbroker Ty Reed. That's not my real name, though. I'm Nathan."

"Ah, yes, now I see it. I'm in advertising in Boston. We have to pay quite a bit of attention to the TV shows—to know where best to place the commercials we're making. I haven't paid too much attention to the program content, though, sorry. But I do recognize you now. And I'll admit I've paid attention to you when you were on the screen."

Nathan was fully aware that Gene had a palm on the shin of the raised leg Nathan held closest to him. He also was aware that he had opened that leg toward where Gene was kneeling on his haunches and his knee was lightly touching Gene's knee. Gene's hand moved from the shin to the inside of Nathan's thigh.

Nathan hadn't come to the beach to be alone. He knew that now. Gene looked good. He was in a Speedo. He'd come in with a backpack, but that was on the sand behind him. He was tanned—or naturally olive skinned—Nathan could tell, even in this light, and he was well-muscled. Not a bodybuilder by any means, but he surely spent quite a bit of time in the gym. About the same age as Nathan, his mid twenties. And a real looker. He could be on TV too.

"You say you're usually in Boston. I take it that's where you work?" Nathan was trying to think up small talk. His attention was on the hand laying on the inside of his thigh. He wanted it there, and now knew he wanted more. That he'd come to Key West to thaw out if he could—and to do it away from New York where he worked and lived and where people were walking on eggs around him. "So, what brings you here?"

"Here? do you mean to Key West. Or to this beach at dusk?"

"Both, I guess," Nathan answered. The hand was half way under the leg of Nathan's wide-legged swimming trunks.

"You're not ticklish here?" Gene asked in his "we're just having a conversation here" voice. "Most guys show some reaction when I touch them here."

"No. My spot is more up here, where the thigh creases into the lower belly. So, why Key West and this beach?"

"My dad lives in Key West—at least for now. And I visit him a few times a year. And this beach, now? I come here to hook up. Isn't that why you're here too?"

"I didn't know when I came down here—but maybe. Yeah, I guess so." Nathan was breathing heavily and starting a low pant. Gene's hand had risen higher in the leg of the loose swimming trunks and was encircling Nathan's cock.

"You feel it here, Nathan?" Gene murmured. "You sensitive to the touch here?"

"Yes," Nathan whispered, signaling that he not only knew that Gene was handing his cock, but that Nathan accepted it. The question of whether this was going to end in ejaculation was pretty much over for both of them already. It was still a tantalizing uncertainty what form it was going to take.

"You're hung. So perfect everywhere. Just lay back for a few minutes and enjoy it," Gene murmured. "Unless you want me to leave. Last chance."

For an answer Nathan laid back, letting his other leg flop open too and raising his arms over his head. Gene began to slow stroke him.

"I come here for looking a great-looking guy like you," Gene said. "You take cock or give it?"

"Both, I guess," Nathan whispered, lost to the stroking of his cock. It had been so long, too long.

"Well, Hallelujah for that," Gene said, with a laugh. He drew his hand away and pulled Nathan's trunks down his legs. Nathan raised his butt to help. Both of them now knew they were going to fuck, that this was going to go beyond hand jobs. Then Gene's mouth came down over Nathan's engorging cock, and Nathan moaned.

Gene took his mouth off Nathan's cock, went up on his knees, and pulled his Speedo down off his hips far enough for his cock and balls to flip out, the cock at half erection. "This cock OK? You want to handle this cock? Here and now? You think now this is what you came to the beach for?"

"Yes," Nathan answered in a small voice. He'd handled enough cocks to know that this was a good one.

"Sweet." Gene fumbled around in his backpack for a condom and some lube and then he was kneeling between Nathan's legs. Nathan put up no resistance. This was what he'd come to Key West for, he now realized. He'd just admitted that to Gene. Maybe his numbness, grief, and feelings of guilt could be fucked out of him by a total stranger far from New York. This was what he'd come to this beach for. He lay on his back, his legs spread, knees bent, feet flat on the sand.

"You're not new to this, are you? You've done this before."

"Many times," Nathan answered.

"Good to hear." Gene knelt between Nathan's legs and after working his cock inside his channel, he lowered his forehead to Nathan's and they stared into each other's eyes, reveling in the effect on each of them, as Gene stroked.

When Gene placed the heel of a hand on the erogenous spot Nathan had noted, in the crease where his thigh met his lower belly, Nathan gripped Gene's buttocks with one hand, wrapped the other hand around his own cock, and began to buck his pelvis against Gene's and to make some noise. He came in short order and Gene pumped on for several minutes to his own ejaculation.

Laying stretched out on top of Nathan in a mutual close embrace as they both cooled down, Gene whispered, "You're right, you've done this before. You got a place around here?"

"I'm staying at the New Orleans House."

"Great place."

They fucked the night away on the queen-sized bed in the loft under the roof, matching their rhythm to the booming rhythm of the music in the Bourbon Street Pub underneath them. Gene told Nathan he was partial to athletic and exotic positions, and, all defenses down, Nathan said he was game for anything.

By the time it was getting light outside, he wasn't so sure he was game for the stamina that Gene showed. Gene fucked him doggie style bent over the bed and both of them facing each other, kneeling back on their bent legs and taking turn whose thighs were under the other and whose dick was in the other's passage. And they fucked with Gene on his back and Nathan riding the cock and arched back over Gene's legs and with Nathan on his back and Gene on all fours suspended over him like a crab, his head toward Nathan's feet, and Nathan's cock inside him.

Nathan woke up to the sound of silence from the club downstairs and sunlight streaming into the first floor of the suite through the French doors. What woke him were Gene's knees straddling his buttocks and Gene's cock sliding into his passage from the rear. Nathan moaned and groaned as Gene rode him to a morning ejaculation.

After Gene was finished, he bounced up off the bed and went into the bathroom in the loft and took a shower. He sang off key in the shower. He sounded happy.

Nathan was glad Gene sounded happy, and he was happy too. But he was happy in an exhausted and sore ass sort of way. Gene was well equipped and he'd fucked all night. Nathan was beyond satisfaction for what he now knew he'd come to Key West seeking.

Gene had made him forget—if only almost and for a short while.

"So, you gonna fix me breakfast so I can build up my strength for later?"

"I don't think I could take you any stronger than you are," Nathan answered, with a groan, not moving from his position of being flat on his belly across the foot of the bed, an arm dangling to the floor. "And although you saw a kitchen downstairs, there's nothing to eat in it. I went straight to the beach when I arrived. I'll go buy some groceries today. But now . . . now I need to get some sleep."

"So, you're throwing me out?"

"For now, yes."

"But I know where you live. Do you consider that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"That's decidedly a good thing," Nathan answered. But then he groaned and added, "But it isn't a good thing for the next six or seven hours. It was a long flight from New York. I thought I was going to get some rest last night, but that didn't happen."

"And you're unhappy about that? This is a fuck hotel. You sorry we went all night?"

"Not in the slightest. But I certainly could use some sleep now."

"I get it," Gene said, his voice cheerful. "Fine, there's lots I can do. I like steaks and yogurt, by the way. Apples but not oranges. Just in case you care."

Nathan cared, but he was too exhausted to do a jig. It was with some relief that he heard the door to the corridor in the room below close with a solid sound—until it hit him that once more he was alone.