On the Beach

Wherein, we discover how Bill's father came to be in the next stall.

Yes, there is gay male sex and incest. Considered yourself forewarned.

Thanks to LarryInSeattle.

*****

"I'll go with you."

"No," I snapped and instantly regretted it. Arguing would only delay me. "No, sweetheart. You stay here. I'm sure he's fine. Don't keep calling his cell phone though. He'll call when he's ready. Bugging him will only piss him off. He needs a little space that's all."

Muriel nodded. I couldn't read her expression. The woman was as good a poker player as she was a martini mixer.

"He's right, Meg." She took my wife by the elbow. "Come sit down. I'll make us some tea."

The others sat, looking uncertain.

Jill raised her head. "Maybe we should just let him be. You said he needs time to think. Let him think. Bill's not stupid. He'll call or be back when he's ready."

I nodded. I agreed with her. "He's not stupid. I'm just going to take a quick cruise past the bars, make sure he doesn't get in trouble trying to pass a fake I.D."

It was a lame excuse. I avoided Muriel's eyes. Everyone else was too upset to give it much thought.

"I'll be back in less than an hour or I'll call," I reassured everyone. I gave Meg a quick kiss and left.

I had a good idea where he might be headed. I knew the spot, not well, but I knew it. I'd been there a few times, when the boys were much younger. I never acted on my obsessions; I only watched. I felt bad enough about doing that.

After the threesome with Muriel, I thought I would tell Meg about my desires. I had held those desires in check for almost as long as I had had desires. I loved Meg. I loved fucking women. I wasn't trying to "pass" as straight. People still claim that there is no such thing as a bi man, that a bi man is actually gay but afraid to admit it. Bullshit. I love sex with women. I just can't stop thinking about sex with men.

As my suspicions grew about Bill's sexuality, it became even harder to bring up the subject. After all these years, what would Meg say if I suddenly told her, "Honey, I'm bi and I'd like us to have a threesome with another guy. Oh, and maybe I should talk to Bill. I think he's gay."

Then the shit hit the fan last night and this morning.

Meg, of course, was beating herself up over the fact she'd been peering through a window, watching our daughter make love to Jim while Bill was "running away". Bill didn't live with us any longer. He didn't have to run away. He was free to come and go as he wished. That's not to say I didn't suspect he was confused and upset. I suspect Meg's guilt has as much to do with how much she enjoyed watching the 'Jill and Jim Show' as it does with feeling she's neglected Bill. In fact, I wondered if some of her guilt might not be because she's a tad bit jealous of her daughter.

I sure as hell enjoyed the show. Jim had a beautiful cock. Seeing it brought all those repressed desires roaring to life. I had nearly convinced myself to stop worrying about how, sometimes when I made love to Meg, I thought about Jim and his hard body. I would wonder what his cock looked like. How big was it? Cut or not? Thick? How dark? I would imagine it in Meg's pussy or mouth or ass, or my own and then I would cum. How was I to deal with this new casual nudity? I loved it, loved seeing Jim's cock, but I loved it too much. I loved seeing it hard even more. I loved watching him cum even more than seeing it hard. My fear was I loved it too much. I'm not in love with the guy, not like Bill. No, I'm not in love with the man, only his cock.

I wondered what to do about my son? And about the fact I lusted after the man he's in love with? That his sister is love with? I wondered what to do about the fact that I can't purge the image of how fantastic his cum looked. Would I be able to resist the urge to gobble it up, it being either the cock or the cum, if I found myself in the same room?

I intended to talk to Bill, without any idea of what I would say. I intended to tell him I understand, at least partly, what he was dealing with, but that was nothing more than foolish arrogance.

I recognized his car in the public parking lot. The lifeguard station was unoccupied. The beach was fairly quiet for a hot July afternoon. There were plenty of people but it wasn't one of those days when you would have to weave your way through blankets, coolers and umbrellas just to reach the surf. There was always a slump between the 4th of July crowd and the squeeze-in-a-week-before-the-kids-are-back-in-school crowd. That's why we come at this time of the summer. It's as quiet as you could hope for without coming on the off season.

I saw feet under the far stall. As I walked toward the stalls a new, monstrous, idea bloomed. It was stupid, vile, impossible. I couldn't shake it. I went into the stall. I tipped the seat with my right foot. The clatter of the seat falling down made me jump. What was I doing? I should leave, now before he saw me. I wiped the seat off, telling myself again to go, to get the fuck out of there. I pushed my shorts down and sat. My dick was already hard. I was a freak, worse than gay, worse than bi. A freak.

I leaned forward, intending to pull up my shorts and flee. Instead, I ran my fingers along the bottom of the stall. I'd seen that gesture before, as I had stood, jerking off, telling myself it wasn't cheating if all I did was watch. I knew what the gesture signaled. As I pulled my hand away, I knew, absolutely knew that I had been wrong. That the person in the next stall wasn't Bill but a cop. I'd be arrested. That would be one way to break the news to my wife and family.

I was so certain, so sure, I was about to be arrested that when the person in the next stall slid off the toilet to take a peek under the wall I just sat there for a second, waiting to see the flash of a badge. At the last moment, I leaned back, pressing my head against the cold concrete. I was once again sure it was Bill; the cop paranoia was nothing more than a manifestation of my guilt. If Bill put his head completely under the stall and into mine, he'd see me. He didn't push that far.

His fingers appeared, motioning for me to present my cock. I should leave. No, I should let him do what he wanted. I did neither. I did what I wanted.

When his legs and cock slid under the wall I forfeited my last chance. I was lost, lost in the beauty of his cock. My own cock began to ache. I slipped to my knees, bent and took my son's cock in my mouth.

His cock wasn't that large. This was only the second time in my life sucking a cock. The first was the summer before college, before I met Meg. My buddy and I were celebrating. He'd turned eighteen. I'd beat him to that lofty pinnacle by a six weeks. Jeb, my buddy, was leaving in a few days for Parris Island. I'd be spending the last few weeks of summer before college on my own. We used his fake ID to buy a bottle of Southern Comfort. We started with mostly Coke and a half-inch, or so, of Southern Comfort. We drank a little bit of it, then added more Southern Comfort. I don't believe we added any more Coke to the glasses that night. Before too long it was straight Southern Comfort.

I slowed down before he did. I took a sip and nearly puked. Jeb kept at it. We had been up at his old man's hunting cabin. He retrieved a stack of porn mags, straight porn mags, he'd hidden in the rafters. He damn near broke his neck falling off the wobbly table, but he did it. We divvied up the stack and started sharing the best bits with each other.

I honestly don't recall who pulled out their dick first. It may have been me. I don't know. I'm pretty sure, whoever it was, we told ourselves all we were going to do was jerk off. I do know Jeb touched me first. I didn't pretend to try to make him stop. I'd been imagining this, even before Jenesse had given me my first hand-job.

I returned the favor. I rubbed the wetness my fingers found over the head of his dick. When I leaned over and took his cock in my mouth, he didn't say a word. He laid back against the ratty old sofa and stretched out. When he came, I almost shot my wad. I sucked on his softening cock for as long as he would let me.

I leaned back. He blew me. I came in his mouth and then passed out, sitting with my jeans and underwear around my ankles and my dick cooling off in the breeze. When I woke up, Jeb was still out. I looked at his cock. It was half hard. My dick was totally hard. I leaned over him and gobbled up his cock. He stirred, mumbled, and seemed to fall back asleep. His cock was awake. That's all I cared about. It took longer that time. When his cock began spraying the roof of my mouth, I savored every drop. He didn't move but I noticed as I rose from the sofa that the soft whistling snores had stopped.

I went to bathroom and made plenty of noise pissing and made more noise as I got the old camp stove going. I needed coffee. When Jeb got up, he walked past me without saying a word, went into the bathroom and pissed forever. By the time he came back the coffee was ready. I handed him a cup. He took a sip and grimaced. After about half a cup, he grinned, said he'd never been that hammered before, and asked me if I remembered anything after we opened the bottle of Southern Comfort. I shook my head and told him I couldn't remember a damn thing either. We picked up the porn mags and Jeb stashed them back in the rafters. I steadied him, my hands on the backs of his thighs. That was the last time I touched him.

I saw Jeb a few more times. He stopped calling when he was home on leave. He died in the first Gulf War. He wasn't even granted a warrior's death. A Hummer he was a passenger in flipped on some fucking stupid road in fucking stupid Kuwait. He left a widow but no kids, or so my mother had told me.

Until that moment in the public toilet, Jeb's was the only cock I'd sucked. I'd watched at times but that was all. I'd been faithful to my wife. Muriel had been Meg's idea, not that I fought it.

I was cheating on my wife. I was cheating on her with another man. A man who happened to be my son.

Jeb had been circumcised. Bill wasn't. His foreskin fascinated me. I followed a large vein that coursed from his shaft onto his foreskin. I used my lips to tug at it. His crotch smelled of cum and sweat. I loved it. I kept my nose in his pubic hair and his cock in my throat as much as I could, only pulling back when the desire to play with his foreskin grew over-powering.

He didn't make a sound when he came. He hadn't been moving. I wanted to tell him to fuck my mouth but he'd recognize my voice. His cum tasted as good as I remembered. The only cum I'd tasted since the night at the hunting cabin was my own, fresh from Meg's still quivering cunt. I would lapped and sucked at her pussy, pretending I was tasting the aftermath of her fucking some hot stud that I, unknown to my wife, was myself dying to suck.

As I swallowed my son's load, I pictured Jim between Bill's mother's legs, fucking her. Jill was sitting on her mother's face. Jim's ass cheeks clenched as he filled Meg's pussy. When he was done, he moved to lay beside her, rubbing Jill's side. I couldn't see Meg's face because she had it pressed into Jill's pussy but I could see Meg's pussy. It was stretched wide and Jim's cum was running out of it, racing toward her asshole. It would never make it. My mouth and tongue would intercept it. Jim would be the first guy since our marriage to fuck my wife and he and my daughter and my son would watch me clean his jizz out of her pussy.

The vision was as clear as it was fleeting. Bill took his cock out of my mouth and the enormity of what I had done exploded in my mind. I jerked my pants up and started to run. As I pushed the door open I paused. What the fuck was I doing?

My son, sat on the cold floor, abandoned. A few hours ago he had confessed his love for his best friend, a man who was in love with his sister, my daughter. What was worse? Being abandoned, yet again, this time by a stranger? Or realizing your father had just sucked your dick?

I know what most people would say. But all I could see in my mind's eye, was my son sitting alone, on a bare concrete floor, in a fucking public toilet. I knocked on the door.

------

When he opened the door he looked confused. Then his face blanched and he staggered against the wall. I reached out and steadied him. I didn't want to do more than that. I wasn't sure if he was going to punch me, run, or cuss me. Whatever choice he made, I would make sure he knew I supported it, even if he told me he never wanted me near him again. That would break my heart but if that's what Bill needed, that's what I would do.

He fell into my arms and began to cry.

I helped him get his pants up. He got control of himself. I stepped outside while he splashed water on his face. When he came out he seemed calm. I walked to a picnic table that was in the shade and sat down. He followed me.

"Why did you do that?"

His voice, when he spoke, was level and firm. His eyes held mine.

"I don't honestly know," I replied, not looking away. "This may seem an asinine thing to worry about at this point but I need you to know, and to believe, that I've never cheated on your mother. Not physically. I've had fantasies. I've watched gay and bi porn. I've watched guys right here." I nodded toward the building behind him, "but I've never physically touched another person." I shook my head and looked at my hands for a moment before looking up. "Except Muriel." I held up a hand as Bill's mouth opened. "That was your mother's and Muriel's idea, not mine." He stared at me for a moment and then closed his mouth.

The sound of the ocean, gulls, and beach-goers seemed very far away. It was like listening to a TV playing in another room through a closed door. The sounds were there but were not connected to anything that mattered, not to us, not at this moment.

"Fine," he said after a long pause. "I believe you. Mom's tough. She can take care of herself." His eyes found mine again. "But you didn't answer my question. Why did you do that? Did you know it was me?"

"Yes. I don't know why. I went looking for you thinking, stupidly probably, that it might help if I told you I knew what you were feeling, in some ways at least. I'm luckier than you. The world was much harder on gays when I was your age but I was as much into girls as I was into guys. I simply pushed that part of myself into a deep corner of my mind and went about the business of falling in love and raising a family." I looked at my son. His face was calm. "I know you yelled that you were gay, not bi. Are you bi? It never seemed to me you were very interested in the girls you dated but I suppose that could mean nothing more than you didn't find them very interesting for other reasons."

Bill's attention became focused on a pair of initials gouged into the top of the picnic table. His eyes followed his right index finger as it traced the letters over and over. When he spoke, his voice was soft but steady. He spoke slowly, but then again he always had. He viewed it as a personal failing if he had to repeat or explain something he'd said.

"I've had sex twice with girls. I mean with two different girls. I had sex more than once with each of them." He shrugged his shoulders and finally looked at me again. "It wasn't terrible. I didn't hate it but it wasn't something I fantasized about. I did it more because it was expected than because of desire." His mouth twitched into a half smile. "Not that there wasn't some element of desire. Sex with a girl may not be what I prefer but it beats my hand."

"What about guys? You don't have to answer if you prefer not to. I don't mean details. Have you had a serious relationship with a guy?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Nada. Jim is the first I felt strongly enough about to even consider opening up to. I've had occasional hook-ups but that's a pain in the ass. I stayed away from home. I never met anyone closer that Elizabeth City. That, the inevitable disappointment and the inherent risks, kept those excursions to a minimum. I don't do the bar scene. Maybe that's because I'm too afraid I'll run into someone I know. I don't know."

He shrugged his shoulders then looked me in the eye.

"Dad, you still haven't answered my question? Why did you do that? Is it something you've always wanted to do?"

His face was calm, unreadable. I couldn't glean the faintest clue about how he felt about what happened. I'd like to think I'd have told the truth regardless.

"I really don't know but no, that is not something I've thought about doing. I've thought about doing it with other men, sure, there is no point denying that, but not with you, not until I was opening the door to the stall." I paused to collect my thoughts. "I guess I went a little nuts, pathetic as that sounds. I wanted to show you I understood. I thought maybe doing something that was so far beyond simply being gay might make it easier for you to accept being gay."

Bill opened his mouth to speak but I held up a hand and cut him off. "No, you haven't accepted being gay, so don't waste your breath telling me you have. I imagined, or thought or rationalized that by doing something most people would find completely revolting, that maybe you'd realize being gay wasn't that big of a deal. I don't know."

I shook my head. "That's part of it. It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. Most people don't have a problem with someone being gay. Incest? That's a totally different story. Fuck, maybe the truth is that after more than twenty years I couldn't resist the opportunity to suck a guy's dick, even if the guy was you."

"I thought you said you never cheated on mom?" Bill asked, cocking his head to the side.

"I haven't, not physically anyway. The other time was before I met your mother."

I gave Bill the gist of my experience with Jeb the night we got drunk in the hunting cabin.

"He never said anything about it?"

"Not a word. I don't think he was that drunk. I don't think you can get so drunk you'll do something you haven't at least thought about doing in the first place. I'm even more certain he woke up when I blew him the second time. Shoot, Bill, I wasn't putting myself out there either. I never brought it up. Maybe he was waiting for me. It doesn't matter anymore. He's dead."

"Huh? How?"

"First Gulf war."

"Fuck," Bill whispered. "That totally fucking sucks."

"Yeah, it does and not in a good way."

I fished my cell phone out my pocket. Bill grew quiet and a wary look settled over his face.

"Relax," I reassured him as I dialed Meg's number. She answered on the first ring and immediately started babbling. I cut her off and had to keep cutting her off.

"Meg, honey, just hush. Okay? Good. He's fine. We're talking. I'm not sure when we'll be back. Maybe five minute or maybe five hours. He's fine. I'm fine. Everyone is fine. He's not running away to join the circus, Meg. He needed to get the hell away from the drama and let his head settle. If he wants to be alone, I'll leave him alone. Honey, seriously now, get a damn grip. Have a drink. Have two. Go over to Muriel's. You think Bill wants to come back if you're going to go ape shit? Calm down."

Bill was smiling. Thank God. He gestured for the phone.

"Mom?" The voice streaming from the phone was so loud Bill had to hold it away from his ear. "Mom! What the fuck are you hysterical about? Is having a gay son that terrible?"

That shut her down. I couldn't hear what she said to him. The phone was back to his ear.

"No, I know you aren't like that. I know that. So, why are you freaking out then?" He shook his head. "Yes, things are a mess but why can't I get out of the house for a while? I don't live at home anymore. If I had decided to go back to Norfolk, what's the big deal?" He rolled his eyes. "No, I did not say I was going back to Norfolk but if I did what's the problem?" He shook his head again, one hand over his eyes. "Mom, I'm not talking about this now. Tell Jill I'm sorry for being a dick this morning. I'll apologize to Jim myself. We'll be home later. Relax. Go get a martini. Go for a swim. We have something to tell you when we get home."