Chapter Ten
Karen. Christine? No, wait—Kylie. That was it.
As the parrots honked and hooted and obnoxiously celebrated the dawn of another day, Brian stared at the mosquito net draped above him. Troy was already gone, as usual. What wasn’t usual was that they’d jerked each other off last night.
Brian had slept marvelously, and after cursing the parrots for waking him, his stomach had flip-flopped—and his groin tightened—as it rushed back to him.
Now he was trying to remember the name of the last woman he’d had sex with.
Yes, Kylie. He’d been restless and anxious one night, and had gone to the Rocks by the harbor.
Plenty of bars there, and he’d never found it difficult to pick up a woman when he wanted.
He was handsome enough, but the American accent did the heavy lifting.
Would have been even easier if he’d mentioned being a pilot, but he lied and said he was a copywriter. Far fewer questions that way.
He tried to picture Kylie’s face. She’d been blond like Kylie Minogue, and he’d made some comment about a resemblance, which she’d laughed off.
Were her eyes blue? Try as he might, she remained a vague blur in his memory.
When had that been? He thought back. February, and it was June now. No wonder I was so pent up.
He sighed. The truth was, he hadn’t been horny much at all the past few years. He jerked off when he couldn’t sleep, but it was more out of habit as a sleep aid than because he was actually turned on. But the last couple weeks on the island, the old familiar pull of desire had hummed in his veins.
That was why he’d tried to jerk off more than once when he was by himself down the beach. The truth was he’d had to stop not because he couldn’t come, but because…
Brian swallowed hard, reluctant to admit it even to himself. He inhaled and exhaled, shuddering.
It was because he’d thought of Troy.
Of course he’d never intended to talk about his horniness, but in the still of the night, there was something about Troy’s presence that lulled him and made him want to spill his secrets.
Not that he’d told the whole truth. Then Troy had made the suggestion to jerk each other, and Brian couldn’t believe his ears.
But it was true, wasn’t it? Soldiers and sailors and prisoners and boarding school boys got off with each other when they had to. It didn’t mean anything. Stress release. They sure as hell had a buildup of stress.
Brian skimmed his hand down his chest. There was a patch of dried semen on his belly that he’d missed, tightening his skin. He traced it with his fingertips, remembering his powerful orgasm and how incredible it had been to be touched again.
He thought of Troy’s thumb teasing the head of his dick. Troy’s muffled pants. The only time Brian had touched another guy’s cock, he’d been a curious kid exploring with his friend at summer camp, and there hadn’t been much to it.
Troy’s cock was big and thick, whereas Brian’s was longer. The heft of Troy’s shaft had filled his hand, hot and throbbing and alive. He wondered what it would be like to touch more of him, to feel his body hair and powerful muscles, the edges and planes so different from a woman’s soft curves.
Sucking in a sharp breath, Brian realized he was getting hard. Over the years, he’d usually woken with a morning hard-on a few times a week, but not every day. He hadn’t this morning, and yet here he was swelling, his belly tightening and balls tingling as he thought about another man.
The urge to reach into his boxers and touch himself overwhelmed, and Brian gripped his shaft, bending his legs and spreading his knees as he stroked—as he imagined it was Troy touching him again. Biting his lip, he muffled his moans, getting off in no time like an untrained teenager.
What the hell is the matter with me?
Chest heaving, he scrambled to clean himself with the dirty T-shirt by the door. After tugging on his cargo shorts, he crawled outside with the tee in hand.
Troy waved from where he sawed wood some distance away. Brian concentrated on a normal tone. “Morning!” he called.
“Morning!” Troy answered.
There, that was all nice and normal. The sky was blue, the breeze gentle, and it was another day just like the ones before it.
But as Brian splashed into the ocean and scrubbed the cum-stained T-shirt in wet sand, his mind raced.
Had he ever been attracted to a man before?
Was he attracted to Troy now? Or was this just a case of biological need? Of…desert island fever?
He’d admired men’s bodies before. The rugby players on TV, or particularly buff guys at the gym. He could imagine how much time and effort went into acquiring six-packs and sculpted quads, and he appreciated their forms. But he’d never been turned on by them before.
“Do you want to go try for some fish?”
Brian whirled around guiltily to find Troy a few feet away. “What? Sorry, you startled me.”
Troy smiled, which creased his cheeks and accentuated the cleft in his jaw. “Sorry, dude.” He looked at the tee clutched in Brian’s hands, and his smile faltered. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, totally. Laundry day. I’ll go fish in a minute.”
“I can go if you want.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I don’t mind.” He wrung out the T-shirt and went to hang it on the rope laundry line before collecting the fishing gear. Everything’s fine. Everything’s normal. BE NORMAL. “See you in a bit.”
“Cool. I’ll get the fires going as soon as I can.” Troy picked up the signaling mirror from its rock, flipping it over repeatedly in his hands. “I’ll do the mirror too, obviously.”
“Great. See ya!” Ugh, that had sounded too fake cheerful.
Brian splashed through the receding tide. “Everything’s fine,” he muttered. “So we got each other off. It’s just lending a friend a hand. Keeping ourselves sane. It doesn’t mean anything more than that.”
Are we going to do it again?
Despite himself, desire coiled in Brian’s belly, and his breath caught with want. He shook his head and muttered, “It’s stress relief. That’s all.”
Squaring his shoulders, he marched on, determined not to overthink it.
“Cool breeze tonight, huh?” Troy asked. As the sun disappeared from view, he followed Brian’s lead and pulled on his tank top. Grabbing an extra flannel blanket from the teepee for later, he moved closer to the fire and sat.
“Mmm.” Brian chewed a hunk of papaya, then licked the juice off his fingers one by one.
As Brian sucked his index finger and released it with a little pop, Troy’s dick came to life. Brian licked up the length of his next finger, his pink tongue catching every drop. Troy’s nostrils flared, and he jerked his gaze away, drawing his knees up.
Get a grip, dude.
He’d seen Brian lick his fingers before. Eating papaya was a messy business, and it’s not as if they had napkins. If you didn’t get your fingers clean, the sand would stick stubbornly. Brian wasn’t doing anything they hadn’t both done a hundred times.
Yet now that those fingers had touched Troy’s cock, memories tumbled through his mind, sending fire through his blood. It had been so good when Brian touched him. What would his tongue feel like?
Jesus fucking Christ, stop being a total creeper freak!
But he couldn’t stop wondering the same thing he had all day: Were they going to do it again? Would it become a new nighttime ritual along with uncapping water bottles and double checking the cover on the firewood? Quickly and quietly jerking each other off?
Well, why shouldn’t it? They were stuck here for God knew how long, and there was nothing wrong with it. It didn’t mean anything. Didn’t mean they were gay. Not that he had any problem at all with gay people. He was totally LGBTQ friendly. He’d just always dug chicks.
This didn’t mean anything.
Troy chanced a look at Brian a few feet away to find him finished with his dessert and staring out to sea. The waves came in stronger than usual to go with the wind.
Maybe Brian was gay and in the closet? It was hard to say. Would it bother me if he was? Troy pondered it. No, it really wouldn’t. It wouldn’t change their situation, and he trusted Brian completely. He supposed being shipwrecked—well, planewrecked—had a way of bringing people together.
“Why’d you break up with your last girlfriend?” Subtle, Troy. Real subtle.
Brian shifted to sit cross-legged, his eyes on the flames. He toyed idly with the fraying hem of his tank top. “It just wasn’t working out. She couldn’t… It wasn’t her fault. It was me.”
She couldn’t…what? Grow a dick because you realized you liked dudes? “Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s fine.” Brian looked at him then. He took a breath as if to speak and then turned back to the fire.
Troy wanted to shake the words loose, but he thought of how Brian never pressed him and bit his tongue. Yet after the silence stretched out too long, he blurted, “Was it after the thing that happened? The thing that made you run away to Australia?”
“I didn’t—” Brian broke off, gripping his hands together in his lap. Finally, he nodded.
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s been a few years since I’ve had to tell it. It was one of the reasons I moved down there.” He smiled humorlessly. “One of the reasons I ran away. So I wouldn’t have to talk about it.”
Troy flushed. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t.” Brian looked at him then, his hazel eyes big and expressive and unbearably sad. “I did run away. I ran away from my girlfriend Rebecca, my friends, my life. The survivors.”
Troy’s gut somersaulted. “Survivors?”
“They’re so grateful, you see? It was a miracle we landed. A miracle anyone made it off before…” He closed his eyes briefly, inhaling deeply.
Troy didn’t know whether to say anything or not. The fire crackled, and in the lingering caramel light of sunset as darkness pressed in, he waited for him to speak. As the seconds ticked by, Troy thought maybe he wouldn’t, but then Brian started talking.