Gang of Five

by Douglas

Chapter 12

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So maybe, after all, you can come home again; but maybe, when you do -- it can get confusing.

People change; my friends had all changed, I’d changed, myself.  But it took me awhile to figure out HOW we’d all changed, how we’d all grown.  And I almost made the biggest mistake of my life, before I finally got it.

*

The next real event -- the next real milestone, for me -- came the next weekend.

Zach’s father was home (to the extent he ever WAS at home), so instead of hanging around Zach’s house, we went to the beach.  Clay’s Beach.

My bike was still in a shipping container, somewhere in the UK or wherever; so I used Tim’s older brother’s bike.  It was an old Trek mountain bike, and it seemed really heavy to me, after my own road bike; but by the time we were running downhill, I was glad for the mountain bike brakes.

See, the thing is -- our quasi-rustic neighborhood sort of outside the town with the initials of M(ill) V(alley) is not really far from the ocean, in direct miles; but there’s that little problem of Mount Tamalpais, and all the hills and canyons in between.

I thought I’d die, on the way.  London’s mostly flat, and I was totally out of practice for real mountain biking.  Sure, I swam, as well as riding, in the UK; but.  This was completely different.

And glorious.

There’s a reason why living’s so expensive, in Marin County, and San Francisco.  EVERYTHING’s beautiful.  The view of the bay, Angel Island, Tiburon and Sausalito, from the hills; Mount Tam itself, the grassland, the oaks, San Francisco and the Golden Gate off shining in the distance --

And then there’s the downhill run to the coast.  That’s when the better brakes came in handy.

Almost all of it -- from the beaches to Mount Tam, and chunks even to San Francisco Bay -- is protected; the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is basically a kind of national park, or Mount Tamalpais State Park, and Muir Woods National Monument off to one side, and conservation easements and wetlands --

It was one of those times when I felt most torn, so perfectly balanced; moving through this glorious, indescribably beautiful place, seeing things again-for-the-first-time, overwhelmed by the beauty, grateful to be with my friends --

And still somehow missing the life I’d left behind a week ago.  Still feeling slightly whiplashed, from moving thousands of miles and a cultural light-year away, in just a day.  And yeah, feeling a little homesick for Robert, and Jose, and even school (THAT was a surprise,) and maybe just London in general.  And no, it didn’t really make sense to me either; but.

*

Clay’s Beach was better than anything I could have imagined.  But it was a lot better BEING there, than seeing it the first time.

I need to explain.

See, it was July on the coast near San Francisco.  Now, most places -- and even where we lived, with Mount Tam between us and the ocean -- July means summer, and hot.  Inland from us, the San Joaquin Valley was baking; most days are in the nineties or hundreds, all summer.

Not on the coast.  When it’s that hot inland -- all the cold air from the ocean (it’s the Alaska Current that keeps the ocean water so cold; REAL cold) rushes inland like an express train.

It’s foggy on the coast in July.  Almost every day; absolutely reliably.  Really, really foggy; with a stiff, cold wind blowing in from the sea.

Like it was right then.  We were on our bikes, on the access road, near the head of the trail leading down the cliffs to the beach; and the fog was whipping by in tatters, and I was shivering, in spite of sweating just a few minutes before.  We’d seen the fog from the top of the ridge; it looks prettier when you’re not wrapped up in it.

“This is just, like, incredible,” I said, as we dismounted, “but -- it’s not exactly beach weather.”

There were only four of us, today; Liam was off at the mall with Candace.  But at least he was warm.

“I don’t know,” went Zach.  He peered out and down through the fog; I could see glimpses of rocks and beach, below, but no people.  “It really depends on the wind; if it’s not windy right on the beach, it can actually be a lot warmer down there.  We’ve had some of our best times, on days like that.”  He glanced over at Tim and Jarod with a smile, and I could see he was remembering something special.

“It’s worth a try,” said Jarod.  He pushed his bike over to a metal signpost, and we all arranged our bikes around it, with bike locks and cables running everywhere, in and out and through frames and wheel spokes; it was pretty secure.

“So tell me again,” I said towards Zach’s back, as we started down the trail, single-file.  “This is an officially-unofficial nude beach - ?”

He smiled back at me, for a second.  “Yeah.  Well, just about everybody who comes here goes naked, it’s pretty well-known, it’s in the newspapers and everything.  And it’s part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area; it’s federal land, and the policy is not to bother you, unless somebody else complains, which nobody ever does.  And we’ve never even seen a ranger, so far.”

“But we did see -- ” said Tim, and locked up.

“Those soldiers, or whatever they were,” finished Jarod, right behind me.  I glanced back at him.  “Last year; on our way down to the beach, we saw them walking around on the trails.  They were in camouflage uniforms, and they had M-16s, and everything.”

“Whoa,” I said.

“Well, they were just patrolling, I guess,” from Zach.  “I don’t know what for, or who for.  But it was just kind of weird, coming down the trail to the beach where we were going to get naked, and well, you know,” and he glanced back at us, “and find soldiers with machine guns on the way.”

“Yeah.”  A lot of things about the world were weird, these days. And I wished a lot of things about the world were different.

The brush was actually pretty high, most of the way, but the trail was well-used, and we pushed through the last of it and kind of ran down the last slope, whooping, jumping down onto the sand.

And it was WARM.  It was beautiful, actually!  Not exactly sunny; and, well, not exactly tropical, but it was a lot warmer and brighter than the top of the trail.  No real wind; the cliffs were blocking it.  Just a nice, gentle breeze.

“Feel this,” went Zach, and he kneeled down at put his hands in the coarse sand.  So I did too.

“Jesus!”  The sand was incredibly warm, almost like it was heated.

“Yeah; it just bakes in the sun in the morning, and keeps the beach warm when the fog rolls in, around now.  This is a good day to be here.”  He looked around, for a second.  “Come on, let’s try over there.”  He shouldered up his day pack, and started towards the driftwood condos against the cliff wall.

Yeah; that’s another thing to explain, about Northern California beaches.  Usually -- it’s not really warm enough to lie out in the open, on the beach; not very comfortably, anyway, unless you’re  fairly warmly dressed.  Even today wasn’t exactly lie-out-and-bake weather, more like lie-out-and-almost-but-not-quite-shiver weather.

So.  People adapt.  They build windbreaks, up against the cliff walls; with rocks, and driftwood; whatever’s around.  Open to the top, open to the sun; just a little bit of shelter from the wind.  That’s true EVERYWHERE in Northern California, believe me, not just Clay’s Beach.

Being California, of course we call them condos.

The thing is -- condos do more than just block out the wind.  They give a certain degree of privacy, too.  Not from the cliffs up above, but from beach level.

I kind of knew some of this.  I’d seen some of the digital pictures at Zach’s house last weekend; of the four of them, here.  So I knew it was pretty likely, we were going to wind up -- doing a group thing.  Group lovemaking; I didn’t really know what to call it, these days.  (It used to be ‘fooling around’, but that was a long time ago.)

But I had a really specific plan, as part of that.  And it was giving me more butterflies in my stomach, and making my mouth kind of dry, in an anxious, but good anxious, kind of way.

And I could barely wait.

I watched Zach check out a couple of condos, from a fairly-respectable distance; one, I could just see, as I came up, had a couple of pale bodies lying side by side in it; the other seemed empty but the walls were kind of low.  He climbed up to another one, glanced up the cliff towards the trail, then waved us on up.  “This one’s perfect!” he called.

So we went up, and climbed in, and spread out our stuff -- Zach had an old sheet for us all to lie on, and we put our towels down on that --

And in another few seconds, I was naked for the Very First Time on my Very First Nude Beach.

It was so, so wonderful.  I don’t think I can describe it properly.

We’ve been back -- a lot -- since that day; it’s wonderful every time, whether we wind up doing a group thing, or anything sexual, or not.  It’s just glorious.

It actually isn’t about sex at all, really; and not that much about being nude -- although both are great parts of the experience.  It’s just so BEAUTIFUL, with the breeze, and the rocks, and the surf breaking on the beach and in big sprays against the cliffs to either side, and the birds, and everything . . .

And it’s so, so not crowded.  It’s not an easy climb down to the beach, and the only parking is on the narrow paved street above, and there are no real signs or anything pointing the way.  Yeah, people know about it, and we were just four of maybe twenty or so people on the beach that day, but still -- especially with the condos for privacy -- it’s a little like being on your own, private beach.  Your own, private nude beach.

I don’t expect anybody from Florida or Southern California to believe me.  But it’s true.

I said a second ago that it wasn’t about being nude, that much, really.  But still -- for me, it was an incredible PART of the whole experience.  It was almost overwhelming, actually.

Before I left, three years ago, all we’d really done was skinnydipping at Zach’s house -- which is beautiful, and wonderful, and sensual, but, it’s just one back yard -- and kind of running around, bike riding at night, finding remote clearings and creeks where we could get naked and fool around.  And hope nobody saw us.  And watch out for rattlesnakes, on the way.

It was all fun; don’t get me wrong.  REALLY fun.  And we did it a lot.

This was different.

As soon as we were out of our clothes, we left the condo, climbing a little awkwardly down the rocks in our bare feet, then running across the sand to the water --

And everything was just kind of, well, perfect.  The beautiful bodies of Zach, and Jarod and Tim, in front of me (I went last; mostly because I was a little hard), and the BREEZE blowing on my body, which didn’t happen really at Zach’s house, and the water, and the warm sand under my feet, and then the cold water and foam around my ankles as I got to the water’s edge . . .

And I didn’t have to, like, worry, about somebody seeing us.  It was okay, being naked like this, out in the open.  Normal; for this beach, anyway.  Nude, cool and beautiful.

And watching the three of them splash in the water, yell and laugh at how cold it was, and push and pull at each other, joking around --

I really wanted my camera, right there, that moment.  But I’d left it up in the condo.  Where I had plans for it, later.

And then Zach and Tim were grabbing ME, and their hands were cold and wet as the pulled me deeper into the surf, and I was laughing too, and I felt incredibly at peace with the world and everything in it.

And that was just the beginning.

Zach brought his frisbee; we played with it, on the hard-packed sand at the water’s edge, moving our way along the beach; in eyesight of our condo, but just running along, moving along, enjoying the day.  Keeping warm in the cool breeze, and the grey glow of the sky.

Watching a beautiful 16-year-old boy play Frisbee, naked -- watching THREE of them play Frisbee naked, heck, just feeling and watching myself running and throwing and catching, moving my body like that --

Awesome.  Like I said; I can’t describe it right.  You have to see it; or better, do it.  Almost the definition of beauty; and something more, the feeling of something just, right, almost spiritual.  Some moments are like that.  I won’t ever forget that one, ever; even though we’ve done it over and over again, since.

And when we didn’t play Frisbee, we -- I don’t know.  We did a lot.  Ran sprints on the beach (ever run nude along the beach?  In a cool breeze?), and climbed on some of the rock towers at the water’s edge, and explored pretty much as far as we could go in either direction --

Zach even climbed up one of the cliffs, all the way to the very top; and I followed, feeling kind of soft and vulnerable, even though it felt so GOOD.  And we found one of the trails, and padded along it, packed sand under our feet, meandering through the bushes, before it led us down to the beach level again.

Watching Zach climb, nude; watching Zach do almost anything with his body, nude; well.  Look up ‘sublime’ in the dictionary.

*

I said that being at the beach that day was almost like being on our own, private beach for the day, and it was.  But we weren’t completely alone; and that actually was something I found really kind of nice, in the end.

Most of the other people on the beach were hunkered down in the condos; baking in the cloudy glow from the sky.  But some others were peeking up out of the condos, and a few were on blankets in the open, up against the cliffs, and occasionally we’d pass a couple or two down by the water, as we played.

At first, it was just a little strange, for me.  I mean, I’d been skinnydipping forever at Zach’s house; but that was between the five of us.  Outside of the locker room at the University gym back home, I hadn’t really been nude, in public, before.

But Zach and Tim and Jarod completely ignored it, and it was just so BEAUTIFUL, being there and having fun, so I just kind of . . . forgot about it.

Until it occurred to me that, well, most of the other people on the beach -- the ones we could see, anyway -- well, were men. 

Almost all men, actually.  There was one mixed couple, on towels by the cliff; but that’s all.

And then it occurred to me that we -- the four of us -- were getting a lot of attention.  A lot of people looking at us. 

Not tremendously obviously; not in a nasty, lewd way (although I’ve seen a few things at the beach since then . . . but.  Even since then, nothing comes close to spoiling that beach, for me.  Nothing.)  But we were getting a lot of attention.

I said something about it to my friends.

“Uh-huh,” went Jarod.  The breeze was ruffling his thick black hair; his lean body was perfectly bronzed, not a tan line anywhere.  “Most of the people who come here are gay men.  It seems to me, anyway.  Zach has this elaborate theory about it.”

“Not so elaborate,” Zach shrugged.  We were wandering north, away from our own condo, the cool, packed, wet sand under our feet.  Zach played with his frisbee, a little, as we went.  “I just think women -- and girls -- are a lot more shy about showing their bodies in public.  Unless they look like supermodels, or something; it’s so, so much about body image.  So they don’t tend to come to places like this, as much.  And if their girlfriends don’t come, straight guys won’t come either.  So, more gay people.”  He swirled the frisbee up a little, and caught it as it hovered down.  “It’s a real shame.”

“Did Liam try . . . ?” I guessed.

“Getting Candace here?  Not yet; I don’t think he dares.  But he will try.”  He did the flip-the-frisbee-up-thing again, and caught it again.  “But he also says she doesn’t even like going around in a swimsuit; so I doubt if she’ll ever do it.  Which is also a shame; she’s really cool.”

“Yeah.”  I still hadn’t met her, yet; but I was looking forward to it.  “So . . . you really think most of the people here are, like, gay?”  I looked around; a few heads showing above the windbreak walls, a few clumps of people on the sand, mostly in couples; not everybody’s eyes on us, but a lot.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged.  He glanced up at the cliff.  “Half?  More than half?”

Another muffled laugh, from Tim.  “We could stop for a second, and . . . . . . start making out.  And see who looks.”  He grinned at me.  “We’ve done it . . . . before.”

“By accident,” said Jarod, and he slapped Tim’s white, bare butt, very gently.  “We thought we were alone that day.  Anyway, save it for when we’re back with our stuff.  Like, the lube?”  And Tim smiled more broadly, at him, and I shivered, just a little, and thought about what I had planned, and tried to ignore that I was getting a little aroused, down there.

A little ways farther along, I saw two figures off in the distance, people walking our way; and then a little later, as we got closer, a big dog came bounding up; really thick fur, a tail in a kind of a short curve -- it looked like a cross between a panda and a St. Bernard, only not quite as big. 

One of the figures whistled, and I heard him shout, “Wasabi”, then whistle again.

And of course the dog completely ignored him; came up to us, stopped, and looked, wagging that huge, brushy tail, and since I’m a total and complete pushover for dogs, I did the ‘hi, come here’ sort of standard body motion things, and the dog came bounding up, almost knocking me down by leaning against my legs as I petted him and patted him, and then all four of us were doing it as he twined around between our legs, panting.

“Sorry about that!” said one of them, coming up pretty fast, and I looked up; he was a kind of shaggy blond boy, with a wispy goatee, older than us, but not that much; more tan than Jarod, even, and totally bare. 

“That’s okay!” I said, still scratching the dog’s thick fur.  He was back to leaning against my legs, looking pretty happy, actually.  “That’s okay.  What’s his name -- ?”

“Oh, that’s Wasabi,” said the blond boy; acting a little embarrassed.  “Like the mustard?  He’s an Akita.  And he’s a big doofus.”  He looked down at the dog, sternly.

“What’s an Akita?” asked Zach.

“Oh, it’s a Japanese breed.  They get pretty big, and strong.  And this guy’s only eight months, he doesn’t know how big he is yet.”

While we were talking, the other figure came up; another boy, about the same age, but this one was a little taller, more slender, with shorter, brown hair.  And also totally tan, and also nude. 

And they were both -- beautiful.

It was just one of those beach-conversations, or dog-conversations; everybody has them.  We didn’t even exchange names, or anything; mostly all we found out about them was that they were from UC Santa Cruz, just taking a slow trip up the coast to Mendocino, camping out along the way.  And that Wasabi (it’s a Japanese kind of mustard, by the way) was kind of a pain, which I thought was unjust on the part of the blond boy; I mean, if you take a dog on a camping trip, he’s bound to need a lot of attention, right?

But that wasn’t the interesting part.  The fun part.

The interesting part was just HOW we talked; and the way we talked, and the way we looked at each other.

Again, nothing in bad taste, or anything; but it was pretty clear, pretty early on, that the shaggy blond boy and the short haired boy were, well, gay; just by the way they looked at us, and talked to us; the way they smiled.

And it was also pretty clear -- they had us figured out. 

Pretty easy, I guess; I know I had a hard time keeping my eyes to myself.  They really WERE beautiful, and beautiful together, and I wondered if Zach -- if all of us -- would grow into bodies more like that, in a few years.

But that all just made it so FUN; so totally, totally fun.  The friendliness, the acceptance; the things we DIDN’T talk about, the admiring looks.  The way we had a kind of unspoken yeah, you’re cute, but I’m not going to hit on you, thing going.  It was just innocent, but also a kind of -- energy . . . . (and yes, I know that sounds utterly Marin County; but).

I felt comfortable enough, I asked the shaggy blond boy to take our picture; (I’d gone back to get my camera, after the frisbee game).  And so the four of us lined up, Zach, me, Jarod and Tim, arms around each others’ shoulders, or waists, pressed up pretty tight against each other; nude, smooth, the foggy sunlight on our bodies; maybe just a little tumescent, from the close contact, and from the admiring looks from the two college boys.

And Jarod leaned his head down on my shoulder, so Zach touched his head to mine, and Tim turned in to Jarod, and the shaggy blond boy took two or three like that for us, and then one more, with me kneeling with my arm around Wasabi, Zach’s hand on my shoulder…

They were the first pictures of the five of us -- or four of us, in this case -- since I’d come back.  And the first with my own camera.

They’re still some of my favorites.  It really was a special day.

And then I got utterly daring, and asked the two of them if I could get a picture of the two of THEM, just as a souvenir; and they agreed!  It was just one of those crazy things, those spur-of-the-moment things, I think; they never would have done it, if we hadn’t talked, and, well, liked their dog.  So I got two nice ones of them, just two beautiful, bare college boys, which we all admired on the little LCD screen.

And then we were kind of parting ways, and the blond, shaggy boy was saying, “Good meeting you!”

“You too!”, I went, bending down to take a farewell scratch session with Wasabi’s thick fur.  “He really IS cute.”

“So are you,” said the blond boy, and I looked up; he grinned at me.  “Totally cute.  All of you,” he went on, looking at the rest of us, as Tim began a stifled laugh.

“Actually, I think I’d call it HOT,” said his friend, and made a whistling noise, shaking his fingers like he’d touched a hot plate; and he smiled too, and gave a little wave as they turned and started back down the beach.

And then Zach had his arm around my waist, and leaned in to kiss my cheek.  I could tell he was smiling, too.  “You should see how much you’re blushing.”

“Yeah.  Well,” I said, looking down at my sandy feet.  “It was a really nice thing to say.”

“And true!”  He was laughing, now.  “You ARE hot, Christian!  Totally hot.  Don’t you know that?”

“You guys are,” I said.  “Well -- okay, maybe WE are.”

“You.  And us.”  He kissed me again, then began pulling me along the beach, back toward the condo.