I'm still standing here, frozen outside my condo door, looking at the spot Jake vacated seconds ago. I'm holding his smoldering cigarette butt between my fingers, hating on myself for acting like a wimp with him. Chubby comes out his front door to the top of the steps, looking down at me, and says, "Come on, Dylan, get dressed. The Atlantic Ocean's waiting on us." I mutter, "Yeah, sorry, Chub. Um, my Mom's boyfriend dropped this suitcase off, and we had a lovely chat together, so I lost track of the time.
Coming down the steps, Chubby mumbles, "Lovely chat? Since when have you used the words lovely and chat?" I dropped Jake's cigarette butt and, in a daze, asked, "What, Chub?" He pats my shoulder, "I'm going to need to spend a lot of vacation time with you, Dylan. I need to get your ass straightened out! You're fucked up."
My ass?
Chubby follows me inside as I drag the suitcase inside. Shaking my head, I mumble, "I'll only be a minute," and then hurriedly put on a T-shirt and sandals. I knocked on my Mom's bedroom door, "Time to get up, Mom. Vacation has started." She said, "I'm getting up, sweetheart. Get us some coffee, okay?"
Fifteen minutes later, Chubby and I return from Dunkin' with the coffees. I hear a lot of laughter from the kitchen as the moms are in that vacation frame of mind now. I wanted to join in with some laughter, but I had a few worries. Even so, I did manage to fake being in a vacation frame of mind pretty convincingly. A half-hour later, we were in the ten-year-old Volvo station wagon our families shared. It was loaded to the max, and we were off for Wildwood. Our Moms had rented the second floor of a fully air-conditioned four-room duplex five blocks from the boardwalk and beach. There were two bedrooms with their own bath, a big eat-in kitchen, a living room, and a cool deck out back. It gets hot and humid in New Jersey in July, so you need air conditioning.
There is usually a nice breeze off the ocean, so the beach is often fairly comfortable. We had to bring all our own linens, beach chairs, a cooler of food, and blow-up toys for Chubby. I was kidding about the blow-up toys. We used to bring buckets, shovels, pails, blow-up tubes for the beach, and water when we were little kids. Now, Chubby and I spend a great deal of time posturing in the evenings on the boardwalk, looking as cool as we can for other kids so they can admire us.
Chubby and I will do a lot of swimming and screwing around in the ocean during the day, walking the beach, and, mostly, just being together again. Our moms sit on beach chairs, getting sun and reading magazines, but they mostly talk. How they find endless things to talk about is a mystery. The Moms go on the boards at night for a little while, but later, they try out a few bar scenes. "Trying to pick up some guys." is what they'll say when we ask why they wanted to leave the boardwalk. Chubby and I loved the rides best, and second best was acting cool and posturing, as I mentioned.
By the time we pulled into Wildwood, I'd put my worries on the back burner because it was time to enjoy being on vacation. Chubby and I slept through half the trip here, and when awake, we both had iPods and our cell phones, so we listened to music. I learned the art of rationalizing by observing Chubby do it. He's a rationalizing genius. I rationalized my Jake problem by acknowledging that sooner or later, everybody would know I was gay, and the moms and Chubby will still love me; so, fuck you, Jake! My Mom will love me, gay or straight. I've never heard a homophobic word come out of Tris or my Mom's mouths.
Sure, Chubby has a homophobic remark to leave his mouth every ten seconds or so, but he doesn't mean it. And even if he did, he'd make an exception for me. Plus, I'm not so sure he isn't a little bit gay himself, or maybe bi like Jake and Tom. So, I'm not worrying about that too much. And, since I've rationalized that situation out, I'm certainly not going to be needing to kiss Jake's ass anymore. That's right, no more ass-kissing. Instead, it's back to me being a smart ass to him. That leaves my other two major concerns, Joel and the Marine.
When I really think about it, the Marine is no problem because I'm simply not going to email him. On the other hand, Joel is a problem, but only for six weeks. After vacation, my job will be over in six weeks. So, I got myself a six-week problem with Joel and his bizarre idea about a weekend together. I've got to figure out something there. I'll work on it. Willie isn't a problem. I love him, and I'm not giving him up, so there you go, Jake! Stick that up your ass!
There, I feel much better. Mom said, "Unload the car, boys. Tris and I will deal with the rental office. Don't go anywhere till we make our plans." Chubby and I nod at my Mom and roll our eyes at each other. They forget we're almost eighteen and still treat us as if we're ten years old. Taking my duffle bag full of clothes and a beach chair, I climbed the steps to our temporary home. I was anxious to see the sleeping accommodations, and when I looked, YES! HAHA! I'm psyched because only one of the bedrooms had twin beds. The other smaller bedroom had a double bed.
Mom and Tris do not ever share a bed, so yes! Chubby and I would have to squeeze our teen bodies into that double bed. Oh, thank you, Gods... all of you! I was in the best damn mood now. I laughed out loud just as Chubby stumbled in with that fucking suitcase of Jake's and Chubby's own duffle bag. "What's so funny, Dylan?" I mutter, "Oh, I stubbed my toe," and laugh again with Chubby's laughing along with me and calling me a dick.
This place was almost new, which is wicked nice. It must be expensive, but I don't want to ask because it will just set the Moms off on a list of things we need to be careful about: Don't spill juice on anything, don't touch any of the controls for temperature, or the refrigerator, or any of the settings on the remote control, and on and on. Oh man, I don't care; I love being here, and did I mention there's only one bed in our room?
Chubby comes out of our bedroom and says, "Hey, cool. I get to sleep with you for two weeks. Don't pout now, Dylan." I said, "Why would I pout? That was the old me, I told you that. The new me goes with the flow, bro." He's like, "Oh, right! I forgot that you're into heavy drugs now."
We got the rest of the stuff out of the car and up here on two more trips. Then we put the food we'd brought in the pantry or refrigerator. The moms bring a lot of food from home because they say everything costs much more here than in Framingham. Everything was unloaded and put away. Chub and I were on the deck, sharing a cigarette and enjoying the view. It was a beautiful afternoon with a nice breeze on our second-floor deck.
Chubby says, "This is life, Dylan. I might live at the shore after college. I mean, get a job here and live here year-round." I said, "Then I'm doing that, too." Chubby looked at me with a serious expression, confused. It was like he hadn't thought about what I'd do after college, but he didn't say anything. I stared back at him, almost daring him to say I couldn't live here, too. I stared back even though I didn't know exactly why he'd given me the look in the first place.
Shortly, Chubby's Mom joined us on the deck and said to Chubby, "Gimme a drag, Honey." She took a drag off the Marlboro, with Chubby saying, "You Moms nag Dylan and me all the time about smoking, and yet you guys smoke." She says, "We're real old, Sweetheart. Our lungs are already corrupted, while you and Dylan are still our babies with bright pink lungs that we think should stay that way. It's always best to listen to your mother." Chubby mumbles, "Oh brother, what a crock."
As Chubby and I walked the five blocks to the beach, excitement was building, anticipating that first look at the ocean. After three blocks, we could see the boardwalk and not being able to contain ourselves, like the little kids we used to be, we raced each other the last two blocks and ran right up the ramp onto the boardwalk, and there was the beach and the vast Atlantic ocean right in front of us.
The beach stretches for miles in each direction. It varies in depth from twenty yards to a hundred yards of white sand as far as you can see to our left and our right, endless ocean straight ahead. High sky, a bright yellow sun above with squawking seagulls floating in the air. And then there's the boardwalk itself. The boardwalk is two miles long and twenty to thirty yards wide in many places, all supported on huge wood pilings. A metal railing along the beach side with openings on each block for steps leading down to the beach, fifteen feet or more below the boardwalk. It's called a boardwalk because it's made of wood boards; you can see where new pressure-treated wood has replaced old wood in many sections. So, there is a railing on one side. Hundreds of shops are on the land side, along the entire two miles, except for the opening of the ramps leading up from the street. At night, it's two miles of neon lights; some of the lights extend way up into the air where the amusement park thrill rides reside.
Stores and shops of every conceivable type, souvenir shops selling cheap junk stuff to other shops selling expensive jewelry, and many clothing shops specializing mostly, but not exclusively, in all kinds of beach wear. There are specialty candy shops for nuts, cotton candy, and the like. Some shops, like the saltwater taffy ones, make the taffy right before you. The fudge shops have high-school-aged boys in the front of the shop stirring vats of fudge by hand, using long paddles, so people walking by on the boardwalk can ogle them through big plate glass windows. There are all kinds of food shops, mostly open-front shops with a counter and stools on the boardwalk. You can stop at a stand and sit down to order or wait in line for an open stool.
Mac's Pizza is everywhere; there are ice cream shops of all types, from Italian ice to soft serve to forty varieties of premium ice cream, funnel cake shops, other types of cotton candy being spun in front of you, and popcorn and caramel corn and regular shops and restaurants with hot dogs, hamburgers, seafood, steaks, Chinese, Italian subs or spaghetti dinners, and on and on and on. Then, every ten blocks or so is an arcade with high decimal noise generated from all the computer games, shooting galleries, and the like. There are large water parks as well as miniature golf courses and carnival-style games like Guess your weight or Knock down Three Pins and Win a Stuffed Animal; games like that.
And, then, the best are the various amusement parks, some large and some small, up and down the boardwalk. Some are on piers jutting out toward the ocean. They advertise that there are more amusement rides on the Wildwood boardwalk than at Disneyland. Chubby and I walked the two miles up and the two miles back, taking in the boardwalk's daytime sights and sounds. It's much different at night when it's jammed-packed with people of all ages and all races and all types, from best to the worst. From the safest person you can imagine to some of the most dangerous ones, all of them putting their differences aside to have fun on the boardwalk.
Yeah, this place rocks. You got to have money with you, of course. The more money, the better, too, because nothing is cheap on the boardwalk. Some feel everything is overpriced. Do you think four dollars is too much for a cup of lemonade? Or a slice of pizza? Or a soft pretzel? Ha ha, bring your wallet to the boardwalk. Chubby and I were giggling about the cost of things, and I was thinking about Jake Rollins saying a cup of beer costs the Pavilion twenty-five cents, and then they sell it for eight dollars. I wonder how much a cup of lemonade costs to make... ten cents?
Back at the duplex, our moms were happily into their third gin and tonic, and by now, they were openly smoking as they sat out there on the deck. Chub and I knew not to make a big deal out of the smoking as they were on vacation, too, relaxing and enjoying a change of scenery. They'd made fried chicken from scratch for dinner. It was crispy and warm in the oven with buttery mashed potatoes and a salad featuring New Jersey tomatoes and cucumbers picked by the farmers earlier today. Mom adds some sweet red onions, some olive oil, and a touch of red vinegar. It's a mighty tasty meal. I don't want to forget the corn on the cob, which was also picked this morning. Boiled for three minutes, slathered in sweet butter and plenty of salt. Hey, salt's good for kids.
The boardwalk isn't as crowded on Sunday nights as on Friday and Saturday nights. Those two nights have all the regular vacationers here for their two or three weeks of vacation, plus all the weekend people. The number of people on the boardwalk balloons way up, and it's barely manageable. As we planned, we stood in line for the double shot thrill ride first.
This is a five-sided tower ride with six seats on each side. Buckle in tight, and just when you think the delay indicates maybe something's wrong with the ride, it snatches you up in the air one hundred feet in one-third of a second. Your shoes and your stomachs are left behind. Before the screams of terror from first-time riders reaches its peek, the Double-Shot shoots you up another hundred feet and immediately drops you in a free-fall almost all the way down to the ground before stopping inches short of crashing, then you're jerked halfway up again, and you don't know what the fuck is coming next. It lets you down slowly, but you're worried all the way down that any second now, it's going to shoot you back up at that ridiculous rate of speed, and something is sure to break loose, and your seat will probably fly off the top, and you'll wind up in orbit.
Most of the night, we were walking the boards with me, looking for cute boys, and Chubby looked for any of the kids we knew from back home or, in lieu of that, for people to make fun of. "Jesus, Dylan, check out the water buffalo with the triple order of funnel cakes. Do you think she could put any more powdered sugar on those fucking things? She Looks good in that spandex outfit, too." I'm like, "Shhhh, she'll hear you. Damn, look at the Neanderthal that's with her. Cute couple."
We're such pricks! It's fun though, and we're not hurting their feeling because they can't hear us. Chub says, "Ain't it great, being so perfect ourselves, we can criticize others to our heart's content?" There were all types of teen boys here, too. From the nerds with the pimples who need to constantly push their glasses up with their middle finger to the hot, tough dudes who I don't want to get caught staring at cause if I do, they'll ask rudely, what the fuck are you looking at, faggot?
And then there are the ultra-cute, safe-looking boys to ogle. I take the chance and ogle them plenty. Most are straight boys, not gay. They never even know I'm staring at their hot bodies or cute faces. They're oblivious that another boy might be attracted to them. Then there are the rare ones who catch me staring and stare back at me, a few even smile shyly back, and then the others give back a bad vibe or a sneer. I'm rarely sure who is gay and who isn't. If I traveled in a gay crowd like Willie does, I'd learn the signs, and eventually, I'd develop my gaydar. At least that's what Carl told me. I don't talk about that sort of thing with Willie, though.
Chubby and I spent twenty-five dollars each tonight, and we only had one drink each... no food. All the rides aren't five dollars, but they're at least a couple of bucks, so it's almost a good thing that we had to stand in so many lines, or we'd spend all our money in one night. We did two double shots, one roller coaster, and three other lesser thrill rides. "Ain't this great, Dylan?" We did one more ride, but getting to bed late last night caught up with us, and we headed home, very tired.
Sharing our last cigarette of the night, we walked in silence, and a thought came to me. It's not the obvious thought that Chubby may have seen Willie and me kissing last night, but why was Chubby getting home so late? Funny, I didn't wonder about this before. I was on my date with Willie, but what's Chubby's excuse, or reason, for getting home after one in the morning? I saw him getting his ear pierced in the Mall around seven o'clock, so what the hell was he doing for the next six hours? Damn, I can't really bring it up, though, or we're back to was Willie kissing me or not. I'm guessing that I'm not the only one with secrets around here.
As we walked silently, I looked over at Chubby, and he looked back and mumbled, "What?" I said, "Oh, nothing. I'm just happy to be here with you." He squeezed my hand and said, "That's sweet, but no kissing tonight, okay?" He was kidding about that, but I pretended he was seriously worried that I'd kiss him, so I said, "Just one, maybe," and he said, "Okay, one, but that's it." Now neither of us knew if we were kidding or not. I smiled, sort of, just in case.
The moms were sleeping, so we were quiet; Chub whispered, "I'm sticky from the heat and humidity out there, so even though I'm dead on my feet, I'm still gonna take a quick shower." I said, "I was thinking that same thing myself, so hurry, Chub," He said, "Come on, Dylan, we'll take it together. We've never been shy with each other." I nodded and muttered, "Good idea," and we quickly got undressed. There was a free-standing, Plexiglas-enclosed shower in the bathroom, which was big enough for us two skinny boys. Chubby turned on the water, and we stood side by side while I tested it until it was warm. I nodded at him once, and we went in. It was so neat showering with Chubby.
He said, "Fuck, remember when we took all our baths together? That rocked. Of course, I was always jealous of your long dick." I said, "I didn't have a long dick when we were taking baths together, you numbnuts. We were just little kids." He goes, "Are you sure?" and I say, "Chubby, you're always worried about that tiny penis of yours. And it's crazy because everybody knows the average size of the human male penis is in the range from just under three and a half inches to almost six inches. I just happen to be exceptional, having this extra-long cock."
Chubby rolled his eyes at that comment as he stretched his flaccid penis out and said, "You gotta be shitting me! Three and a half inches? To think, all this time, I've had a normal size dick and didn't know it." I mumbled, "Well, let's not get carried away here. It's within the rather generous limits of average and barely at that."
Chubby laughed. We washed each other's backs and shampooed each other's hair, but other than that, we washed ourselves. I couldn't help but think that this could be the start of something good. Dried off and feeling nice and clean, we climbed into the double bed. Chubby goes, "Oh, nice mattress. Come on, Dylan, let's do our homo act. I love squeezing your wickedly skinny body," and we got wrapped up with each other pretty well. Unfortunately, I don't remember anything after that. I'm sure we both were out cold in less than a minute.
The next morning, the sun shining through our bedroom window woke me up, shining right in my eyes. I'll need to remember to pull the shade before I go to sleep tonight. It seemed early, and I reached the nightstand to check my watch. it was only six o'clock. Chubby was still sleeping soundly. I've been in bed with Chubby quite a bit for the last couple of days, and I love it! Oh boy, by ruffling the sheet, I got to enjoy that concentrated smell of Chubby again as the air drifted out from under our sheets. Then I gently got my arm under his neck and lightly laid my face alongside his.
Oh, boy, my dick got hard really fast, and I tightened my whole body to keep from grunting or groaning. Little by little, I tightened my hold around his neck until his face was moved up a little, and our lips were together. I pretended to make out with him. Smelling him and feeling him with our faces full against one another and even our lips together. Oh man! I thought this would be a fun thing to do, but it got me so aroused that my groin muscles were tightening up repeatedly, and I had to bite my bottom lip to contain myself. This was so hot,
Allowing my imagination to play games, I could almost feel Chubby's tongue in my mouth, and the head of my hard cock became wet. I was panting, and Chubby groaned out some sound right in my face, and he rolled his leg on top of mine and settled in against me again. I lasted about a minute, being almost under him with our faces still touching when I grunted, contracted my stomach muscles, humped my crotch, and squeezed a string of cum into my jockey shorts. My face felt hot as I strained out another longer string of cum into my underwear, and then, when I relaxed, a little more cum drooled out to pool against my belly.
I only enjoyed the last drooling part because the first two shots were kind of shocking to me. It scared me that one minute of contact in this awkward position with my best friend and the boy I love could cause me to have an orgasm. I took my time reversing my holds on Chubby because I didn't want him to know about this... he'd think I was a freak. When I'd separated myself from Chubby, I slipped quietly out of bed and into the bathroom to clean cum off my shaved crotch. If I want to enjoy sleeping with Chubby, I can't be doing this every night. I quietly rummaged through my suitcase to first hide the cum drenched jockey shorts and then get out clean underwear, this time boxers. Back in bed next to Chubby, I rationalized away the whole incident and, in short order, decided what was so wrong with it.
It didn't take long to fall back to sleep and the next thing I'm aware of is Chubby shaking my shoulder, saying, "Come on, sleeping beauty, let's get started. It's after nine o'clock." I get up looking sheepish, thinking about what had happened earlier in the morning. I might need to do more rationalizing about that later. We had OJ and cereal with the Moms. They told us they were signed up for a cocktail cruise at five, so we boys were on our own for dinner. The Moms would be home late. "Have fun, boys. We love you two to death!" hugs and kisses, and finally, Chubby and I escaped and were free all day.
We headed for the beach, each carrying a low-to-the-ground beach chair; we wore sandals, T-shirts, and boardie swimsuits. Cool sunglasses completed the picture of us styling and feeling good. I had a small backpack with towels, bottled water, cell phones, and sunscreen. Chubby had smokes and some money in his pocket, so we were set for the day. We were going to set up our chairs close to the water when I caught a vision out of the corner of my eye of identical twin boys, maybe sixteen years old; they were sitting in beach chairs very close to one another.
They had strawberry-blond hair pulled back into identical stubby ponytails. The cuteness factor was off the fucking charts with these two, and I just knew this was going to be the best Wildwood vacation I've ever had. Chubby says, "Yes, this is a good spot, Dylan." I mumble, "How about further down the beach to our left? See that open space." Chubby's mumbling about one spot looking like the other, but we walk down to the left anyway. When we arrived at the perfect viewing spot for twins-watching and ogling, I went, "This is perfect!" Chubby gave me a look, shrugged, and dropped his chair.
"This is ideal, huh, Dylan?" Chubby is always reinforcing the premise that everything is great. I like that about him. "Yes, it's great, Chub! The only way it could be any better is if you were sitting on my lap." He checked if anyone heard me and said in a stage whisper, "You're always screwing around like that. What if someone hears you? For Christ's sake, Dylan, use your head." I pretend my feelings are hurt and hop my chair a foot away from Chubby, and he hops over next to me again and says, "Don't be a dick! I don't want people to get the wrong idea. Okay?"
That's apology enough, so I smirk and take a drag. Chubby says, "We better do the sunscreen." We did each other, and that was fun! He and I have had bodily contact since we were infants. We slept in the same crib hundreds of times and took hundreds of baths together. We adopted our unusual way of watching TV together, with Chubby snuggled up next to me when we were toddlers, and continue it till today. We've slept together with our arms around each other into our teens and cut one another's hair. Touching each other is as natural to us as breathing, but saying words that might cause someone to think we're gay gets Chubby in a huff. Now that I've recognized that I am gay, the touching takes on a whole new significance for me.
After we're both covered in sunscreen and back sitting on our beach chairs, Chubby wants to chill out and listen to music, so I take the opportunity to check out the twins some more. They might be younger than sixteen, but I don't think so. Their bodies are well-formed and have very tight, smooth torsos with fine, natural definition. They are not in the same league as the Dickers brothers, but then... who is? These boys have very fit bodies, though, and although they're not much taller than Chubby, they have especially long-looking, well-defined legs with a sprinkling of light blond hairs on their calves. They have nice feet, and they appear to enjoy bumping against one another.
Several seagulls were squawking over French fries on the beach, and the twins turned to see what the fuss was, looking in my direction. Whoa, holy shit, they have large green eyes under long, pale eyelashes. There are freckles across their pug noses and big dimples when they smiled, and then look out at the ocean again.
A little later, the twins got up and wandered to the water. I asked, "Chub, do you want to go in for a swim?" He said, "Not now." I got up and walked into the ocean. I went out till I was almost chest-deep in the salty water, waiting for a wave to use for body surfing into the beach. I got one, and I collided with one of the twins while surfing toward the beach. We came up, spitting water and rubbing the salt water out of our eyes. Someone behind me said, "You okay, Noah?" Noah is the twin I collided with. He nodded that he was fine, and the other twin asked me, "Are you okay?" I nodded, too, and took the blame for the collision.
I said, "Sorry about that, my fault. We seem to be the only guys who are body surfing, and I run into one of us. I'm Dylan Newman, by the way," and I held my hand toward him to shake. The talking twin said, "Nice to meet you, Dylan. I'm Nathan North, and this is my identical twin brother, Noah." Oh man, I got a huge smile from Noah, and he did the handshake, one-arm hug, and pat on my back. He looked at Nathan, nodded his head toward me, and they both laughed. Nathan says, "Noah says you remind him of a friend we met here on the beach last year, Oliver Nickerson. He collided with us just like you did. You don't happen to know him, do you?" I say, "Oliver? No, but I know a Dodger?"
We'd waded out of the water and toward the chairs as Nathan asked, "Are you gay, by any chance? Our friend Oliver and our brother, Alexander, are gay, and we wondered if you were because we seem to be attracting gay boys the last year or so." I was flabbergasted! First, the straightforwardness of the question! Secondly, the accuracy of their gaydar, and thirdly my lies. "No, sorry boys, I'm not gay. Far from it. Not that there's anything wrong with being gay." The boys looked at each other skeptically and made a look with their eyes of some kind, and Nathan said, "Oh, too bad."
Two yards from us, Chubby says, "Jesus, am I looking at some kid who's looking in a mirror, or what!?" We all look at him, and I say, "Here's my best bud, Chubby Jeffrey Romero," then I introduce the North twins to Chubby. They shook hands briefly, and Nathan said, "Oh, we thought you were brothers." They explained they'd seen us sitting here, and since they're gay, they had been sneaking stares at us because we're both so cute.
He says the most outlandish things, so matter-of-factly, it's hard to believe. Chubby's mouth was hanging open at the directness of Nathan's statements, and even though I'd had exposure to them already, they were still startling—Chubby mumbled, "Oh, so you're gay identical twins. That's not unusual at all." Noah nodded in agreement. A booming voice makes us all look over at a bald-headed man with a significant pot belly saying, "Nathan and Noah, come over here, please."
Nathan says, "Our parents don't trust young guys around us. Strangers, I mean." Chubby and I are exchanging looks, like... can you believe this shit? Then, a more frantic call, "Nathan... Noah... now!" The boys laugh; Nathan says, "They're very protective of us. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, but what are you gonna do? See you boys later." They did little waves, turned around, and ran to the skinny bald man standing beside a fat, pale lady. Those two couldn't have produced the beautiful twins... no way!
Chubby and I rolled our eyes, went in the ocean, and were busy body surfing and dunking each other for a good hour. When we came out, the twins were gone. Why in the hell didn't I say I was gay? Because I'm in the closet, that's why.
To be continued...
