Page 69 of Disco Witches of Fire Island

The mental image of being someone Fergal wanted to cuddle and toss around made Joe instantly have to camouflage his lap with a napkin. He loved knowing that merely by his Armenian genetics he was someone Fergal craved.

“Anyway,” Fergal said, adjusting his own crotch, “this Buck guy is a waterdog, like me, and says I’d love it out in Honolulu. I can spend all day just staring at the ocean, like it’s some big friendly blue-green monster.”

“You ever get scared if the waves get too big?”

“Never,” Fergal said, an intent, serious look on his face. “Duck diving under or riding a massive bomb is the only thing that makes me really feel like myself—like I’m free. You know when you’re in the water and you see the entire ocean heave up like it’s breathing? One second it’s flat, and the next thing you know, you’re facing a fuckin’ mountain? It starts going higher, higher, higher, until it crests like it’s reaching up for the sky, then it tips over and breaks, sending me rag-dolling in a big old sudsy washing machine.”

Fergal laughed heartily at what he had just said, as if it was just the funniest story in the world. Joe laughed too, mostly because he wanted Fergal to keep talking. He loved Fergal’s Long Island twang and never imagined he had all this beautiful weirdness in him. Being with him felt like some magic miraculous gift—the antidote to all the darkness.

“So anyway,” Fergal continued, “Buck taught me how to surf on these rinky-dink waves out here, and I caught on just like that. He said that if I wanted to ride the real monsters, I had to check out this place called Waimea Bay in Hawaii. He said in the winter the swell can get as big as a building.”

“For real?” Joe asked.

“Yep. Sometimes the waves are so massive you can’t even getcloseto the water, or they’ll yank you in, and bam! You’re dead—just like that.” Fergal snapped his fingers. “I gotta see that!”

Joe’s eyes widened. He didn’t like the dying part, but he’d be up to watching a wave the size of a mountain.

“When do you think you’ll go?” he asked, hoping it wasn’t anytime soon.

“Dunno yet. I’m close to saving enough money. Maybe I’ll get my BA in marine biology from the University of Hawaii. You need a year of state residency, and then you can go for cheap. Can you imagine getting to surf and swim every day, all year long?”

Joe imagined what it might be like to watch Fergal swim in these theoretical giant waves, just like he’d seen him that first morning on the Fire Island beach. His lithe body, laughing and diving into the water like some handsome-as-hell dolphin. Joe wished he could give Fergal that kind of joy. He wished he could be Fergal’s wave.

After that, they focused on finishing their meal, with small flirty looks at each other between mouthfuls. Their free hands playing with the other’s, feeling the veins, the hairs on their wrists, the knobs of their knuckles. Neither wanting to interrupt the touching. But then Fergal looked at his watch.

“If I don’t catch that last ferry, I’m gonna be stuck.”

“You can stay with me, of course,” Joe said casually, but then looked into Fergal’s eyes. “I mean, I want you to stay with me. I really want you to.”

Fergal looked down at his empty plate and then at Joe’s hand, which he returned to holding. For a split-second Joe noticed that there was a brief look of sadness in Fergal’s eyes.

“Okay, I’ll stay,” Fergal said. “But I don’t want to have sex yet. Is that okay?”

Joe almost groaned in exaggerated fake agony. “You know what’s going to happen, right? Neither of us will be able to sleep ’cause we’ll be hard all night. I can’t promise I won’t try something.”

Fergal smiled. “I got will power for both of us. But I’m serious. I want to know you better, and I want you to know me better. I’m not the kind that disappears like my father, but I also don’t want to end up like my mother either.”

“I don’t think I’ll get you pregnant, but you never know. Howie does keep saying this island is magical …”

“Very funny. But you got to promise—no trying anything or I’m swimming back to Sayville, and I’ve done it before, so don’t think I can’t. Okay?”

“Okay.” Joe sensed that once they were in his attic bed, things would change.

But things didn’t change, and while each man kept his underwear on, they couldn’t help but kiss and snuggle. After three hours their mutual erections became painfully annoying.

“I’m gonna go sleep on the beach until the ferry gets here,” Fergal finally said after another round of blue ball–inducing kissing. “Both of us have work tomorrow—I mean today. And I’m a little worried that if my dick doesn’t go down, it might bust open.”

“Just sleep downstairs on the couch, then,” Joe begged, although his stomach sickened at the thought of Fergal leaving his bed.

“Nah. Twenty feet away from you isn’t far enough to make my dick go to sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Joe grabbed Fergal and kissed him again. This led to another ten minutes of making out and groping through their clothes until both men were knotted-up in passionate agony. Fergal finally dragged himself down the ladder and out the door.

After hearing the gate slam, Joe listened through the attic vent for Fergal’s departing footsteps, reminding him that what had happened hadn’t been a dream. After Elliot, he’d thought any future love would feel inferior, like a slightly deflated balloon. But what Joe felt for Fergal wasn’t second-rate at all. He closed his eyes and imagined Fergal lying naked on top of him. The heat of his breath. The smell of his body. Joe would run his fingers through the small patch of hair at the top of his chest, and Fergal would lift Joe’s legs, pressing himself slowly inside. “Is that okay?” Fergal would ask. “Keep going!” Joe would beg. Fergal would press further inside and start to work his hips. Joe began to stroke himself, thinking of that pleasurable pain, thinking of Fergal’s hairy thighs meeting his own, Fergal’s balls hitting just below Joe’s hole. Then, just as he was about to cum, Joe imagined looking up into Fergal’s blue-blue eyes and saying “I think I’m in love with you.”

But suddenly the person he saw in his mind’s eye wasn’t Fergal at all. It was the Gladiator Man atop him, his hand around Joe’s throat, his massive cock thrusting painfully into Joe’s ass, ejaculating fire into Joe’s guts. Joe attempted to force his mind from the brutal fantasy back to Fergal, but it was too late. His cum shot across his chest, and in his mind he watched the Gladiator Man laugh.

35.In the Bushes

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